What's the best ways for Modern History notes to be structured, in regards to including important information like events, causation/effect stuff and people with all those important details?
Hey Caitlin! I didn't write notes so much in Modern, as I was a practical based learner and it was more beneficial for me to focus on just banging out past papers, however I am a BIG advocate for tables when it comes to Modern, and if I did write notes for anything it would normally be in a table format. The most beneficial tables I had included:
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Detail table: Structured according to the syllabus, so down the left hand column would be all the dot points, and then across I had one column for detail and one column for quotes. This is where you don't put the core information and outline, but any interesting facts, stats and quotes to enhance a response. My detail table can be found in the notes section for reference, but I think its really important to make your own as well in order to remember everything better! This should cover all of your topics.
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Linking tables: These were also really valuable. When it comes to essay writing, what pushes a 23/25 mark essay to a 24-25/25 mark essay is your ability to link factors, particularly when writing a differentiated essay. I studied Russia, so the way I did this is I wrote all the syllabus dot points for Bolshevik Consolidation of Power (the first heading of the syllabus) along both the left hand column and the top row, and tried to relate each factor togeather, eg. how did the Civil War link to the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, how did the Treaty of Brest Litovsk link to the NEP etc. etc. The links can be both conceptual and thematic - eg. they both demonstrate the importance of ideology/pragatism etc. - and more direct - eg. the Civil War and War Communism created the need for the NEP. I'd recommend this linking table for the
National Study and the
International Study. An example of one of my linking tables for the Bolshevik Consolidation of power can be found in the notes section.
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Debate Tables: These can be used for all sections, but I think they are particularly helpful for the
Personality Study. Now when it comes to writing a part B response, the questions are almost always centred around one of these debates:
- Differing interpretations of your chosen personality (so for Trotsky that's practical revolutionary vs. naive idealist, pretty sure for Speer it's the good nazi debate).
- Were they shaped by events, or did the events shape them.
So I think its a good idea to put down the left hand side all the significant events/factors (so for Trotsky that included 1905 revolution, 1917 revolution, Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Commissar of War, Power struggle, life and activities in exile), and try and work out how each aspect fits into each debate and also each argument within the debate. For example, in regards to Trotsky and his role as Commissar of Foreign Affairs, you can argue that he was a naive idealist in that he held too strongly to his ideological belief in permanent revolution and this was ultimately a failure, however you can also argue that he was a practical revolutionary because once his mistakes were realised he quickly decided to forgo these beliefs in favour of Lenin's more practical position etc. etc. This is also really good because it allows you to see which events/factors make for the stronger argument, as you don't want to talk about all of them, only 3. An example of my Trotsky linking table can be found in this thread:
https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=164918.0In such a high content subject as modern, it is important to study smart rather than study more, so I hope that this proves useful as I believe these should be much more effective than just writing out a hundred dot points of information. Check out some of the notes under the notes tab also! There are so many, for a heap of different units so definitely worth a look over (when I didn't study from my tables/write practice responses, I was usually using premade notes from my teacher or that I found online).
Again, hope this was helpful! Good luck with your half yearlies, let us know if you need help with anything else