Module A: Making Study Notes

[BakerDad12]

Hey guys, for Textual Conversations I'm confused as how to structure my study notes. I'm not sure whether to do study notes that revolve around comparison between the two texts, or two separate sets of study notes for each text. I feel doing the former will restrict some key ideas and quotes and doing the latter will take a really long time and ultimately not be very useful. What do you think is best?

[angewina_naguen]

Hey guys, for Textual Conversations I'm confused as how to structure my study notes. I'm not sure whether to do study notes that revolve around comparison between the two texts, or two separate sets of study notes for each text. I feel doing the former will restrict some key ideas and quotes and doing the latter will take a really long time and ultimately not be very useful. What do you think is best?

Hey, BakerDad12!

That's a great question! When I did the comparative study, I had my notes revolving around comparison between the two texts because it made more sense to me since that's the premise of the module. I think making the notes separately, while it can enable you to go into more depth, will only make extra work for you later on. You'll have to draw connections between the two texts on top of having to cut it down to what you think the best examples are to bring into the exam. You will be restricted to key ideas and quotes if you take the former approach but you'll know for sure that each text is being considered with the other in mind and that you'll be able to facilitate effective comparison at the end of the day. Ultimately, your aim is to explore their "textual conversation" so I would definitely argue the former is the better way to go!

If you would like to see a good sample of it, I'd recommend this set of notes from the forums bank which structured it similarly to how I did mine in the HSC 

I'd also recommend using your study notes in combination with practice questions! Once you have your content consolidated in one place, I would highly advise applying it to questions. Here are some Module A practice questions available on the forums which you can use for practice. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any further questions 

Angelina 

[BakerDad12]

Hey. Thanks for the great response! I think direct comparison would be better. Another q if that's ok: how do I know which quotes to write? The questions can be so specific but if I am only going to memorise a certain number there would be so little I can use. Do you recommend memorising quotes that are adaptable to different questions/ideas, or structure quotes per idea?

[angewina_naguen]

Hey. Thanks for the great response! I think direct comparison would be better. Another q if that's ok: how do I know which quotes to write? The questions can be so specific but if I am only going to memorise a certain number there would be so little I can use. Do you recommend memorising quotes that are adaptable to different questions/ideas, or structure quotes per idea?

Hey again!

Great follow up question! When you're doing your annotations, try and find, and then filter out, quotes that are adaptable to multiple questions and ideas. This can prevent you from having to memorise 50 quotes from your text and instead settle with perhaps 10 from your text that are flexible and can be worked with on the spot. Once you've paired up your quotes and have them ready for direct comparison to be facilitated, I would try and group them under themes so you can ensure you have a good balance between them (and not 4 quotes for one theme and only 2 for another)  Hope that helps!

Angelina