History Revs Note Taking

[dreamer17]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to the VCE system this year and am doing History Revs 3 and 4 - French and Russian revolutions. I have all these notes from class but whenever I try to organise them I'm not sure how I should be doing it - by dates, or by specific events and people, or what? I just want the bare minimum to memorise but I have no idea how to memorise all the key people and events, as well as the chronological order they came in. I've tried making a mind map but I'm finding that I still am not sure how to categorise everything and memorise it effectively. There's just so much info that even when I condense it down it still seems like an awful lot to remember... Any help would be great thanks!

[Azov]

As someone who did Revs last year, I think I can help.

For me, I took down notes in a chronological order:
1st line) The year and event
2nd line) Specific date upon which it occurred
3rd line) Who was involved with said event
4th line) A brief explanation of the significance of the event (i.e: showed weakness in royal authority, gave more power to the peasantry, etc etc). An example of this put into action would look like this:

Spoiler

1789 - Meeting of the Estates-General
Date: 1st May, 1789
Who: Third-Estate, Nobility, Clergy, Louis XVI.
What: The Estates assemble at Versailles to discuss fiscal and financial policy. This demonstrated how out of hand the crisis had become in France, which now demanded immediate attention from the population. It also showed the weakness in Louis' rule, as he was now degrading his power to democratic input, which almost opposed the concept of an absolute monarchy.

After that one, I'd leave a space then put in the next notable event that occurred. Then, once I had got all of them down (many textbooks will have a timeline in the back of them to refer to), I got a friend to randomly pick a date/event and I'd repeat what information I could recall about what they picked. For example, they'd say "What happened on the 1st of May, 1789?" and I would retell what I had written down.

Hopefully this helps and I wish you all the best with Revs this year! It's really a fantastic subject to take and enjoy

[dreamer17]

Thank you so much! That advice already made me feel better. Revs is definitely the best of my subjects this year - loving it. 

[gunsforhands]

I'm very sorry to say that if you want to be memorising the least stuff possible, the french rev is gonna be a struggle, especially area of study 2. One very helpful way I organised my notes was by typing them up on google docs, so I could edit them whenever I needed to. I had four separate docs for each revolution:

1. Events (make sure you note where aos1 ends and aos2 begins)
2. People
3. Movements
4. Ideas

In each section just write a little paragraph about specific events, revolutionary leaders, etc.
On the events doc also having a timeline will help you heaps. in the timeline, make sure you don't just have an event and a date- also include the significance of the event, so when you're revising your notes you can remember why a specific event was important and how it contributed to a revolutionary situation.

Hope this helps

[dreamer17]

Thanks very much for your great advice!