What's the best way to link reliability to usefulness? Perspective is easy, because you can just say "Source X is useful as it provides the French Premier's perspective of the competing interests in the negotiations..." but for reliability can you do something similar? Like "The source is also very useful as it is a reliable recount of first days The Somme corroborated by other sources..." or "The source is very useful as it is a real example of persuasion techniques used by the British..."
The problem I see here is it sounds repetitive. If I'm using this rough format: perspective > reliability > usefulness then I'm going to be repeating what I just talked about in regards to perspective and reliability. Should I be using synonyms for reliability to make it less repetitive or will this seem like I'm straying from the required analysis? How can I justify usefulness without being repetitive or ingraining it directly in a discussion of perspective/reliability (not many seem to suggest doing this).
Thanks!
i have no clue hahahah i've got the same problem with linking reliability to usefulness. in my mind, if a source is reliable, it's automatically useful 😂 i don't think it matters if you're being repetitive, because a source analysis is kind of like an equation (sorry to bring maths into this...) where perspective + reliability = usefulness; you're pretty much building usefulness off perspective and reliability so somewhere there you're bound to repeat yourself. you've probably been taught this before, but if a source isn't exactly reliable (cringing using this word, but if the source is biased), it is useful to show a point of view :-) hope this helps??
Hi!
Just wondering if anyone has an exemplar Personality Section response that uses General Douglas MacArthur?
Thanks!
no, sorry - that seems to be a very rare personality study hahaha this is the first i've heard of someone doing it!
Hey guys!
This is probably a dumb question but how do you write a 'describe' essay? I've asked different teachers, students and tutors and all of them say the same thing: just talk about what happened as if you're telling a story. But whenever I write a describe essay (for example, in my History Investigation), I found that I keep unintentionally making judgements rather than just describing what happened. For example, the question was 'Describe the role of Tsar Nicholas II during his reign' and in my draft I talked about how he had a minimal role (unintentional, but seriously, he didn't do much!). Even though there's only one 'describe' question in the HSC, being the Personality Study, I'd still like to know how to approach 'describe' essays and how to structure and respond to it.
Thanks!
hey, welcome to the forums! i hope AN becomes a really great place for you throughout year 12 :-) by the way, there is no such thing as a dumb question!
the personality section is
pretty much the same thing every year, like, they can only ask you so much on it. these are the questions from the past 4 years:
2016 - Describe THREE significant events in the life of the personality you have studied.
2015 - Describe the significant events in the life of the personality you have studied.
2014 - Outline the background and rise to prominence of the personality you have studied.
2013 - Describe the rise to prominence of the personality you have studied.
as you can see there, 2015/16 asked you to do significant events for your personality, so you'd structure your response into 3 paragraphs, each one describing a significant event. 2013/14 asks you for the background and/or rise to prominence, and if you know your personality (check the syllabus now if you'd like), there are syllabus dot points for those, so each paragraph can be one dot point. but yea, structure isn't a biggie in the describe section for the personality section (in my opinion) - as long as you're answering the question, you should be good. another thing to remember with 'describe' essays is to pack in as much detail as you can! dates, statistics, etc (not historiography, that goes into the next section) will get you into the higher bands. try your best to avoid making judgements because then you're not really answering the question. (although yea tsar nicholas ii didn't do crap during his reign)
hope this helps - best of luck for year 12,
fantasticbeasts