Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Payment & Philanthropy in British Healthcare, 1918-48, Understanding the Roots of Voluntary Action, Early-Career Life 2015: George Campbell Gosling | History Lab Plus. If they’re paying enough attention to be suspicious then they’ll carry the idea with them into future classes and trips to the library when they’re handling primary/secondary sources after the class ends. While both writing styles can be used to discuss another piece of work (like a play, book, movie, or … Answer the question: How useful is this source to historians? Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. In fact, history is NOTa "collection of facts about the past." Reference secondary material in the normal way. Don’t be fooled – there is a question and that question is always ultimately the same. o Within this there may be more than one theme. You might answer these questions in a number of different ways or orders, but they will usually fall broadly into the structure of description then commentary. Critical commentaries usually reference relatively recent scholarly sources, focusing on small units of a text rather than the whole. They usually devote themselves to analyzing for bias and discussing a text's prehistory and literary traditions, as well as seeking to place the text in a historical … Commentary can be a hard concept to understand without examples to guide you. Some useful aids to commentary-writing The opening sentence needs to make it clear what source is under review. These are some nice examples of just why we need to read our sources critically and dig around them. An excellent piece. Skipping this will leave you on shaky ground. I have needed other sources to discover that their shipmates were burned beyond recognition at Jutland (“of course I’ve lost heaps of pals”) or where they were marching from and to (“I got interrupted by a job of work”) or that they were sitting next to a man killed by a shell (“I had the narrowest of close shaves”). That said, not every historian will use every kind of source. The author's philosophy should be explained through the ideas found in the text under analysis. I hope the term goes well for you, too! @gcgosling and read the source, of course. Some questions you might want to ask (not all will be applicable to all sources, but many will be): The marking criteria are the same as for any other piece of work. We use cookies to give you the best online experience. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Sometimes they will put Hebrew and Greek in the footnote, but not in the main body of the text. The next section of your paper should include a much more detailed exploration of the main ideas of the text. This post would have helped them immensely with the headnotes. I am going to use it in my teaching this year at the Univesity of Exeter. If you can answer that, the rest is process. Do you think primary and secondary sources are defined differently for students in high school? What I have found, working with the First World War letters of my grandfather and his brothers, was that they wrote very differently depending on who the letter was for (their mother, their sisters, each other) and there was a lot of self-censorship. It’s a hard thing to learn in abstract. What can’t it tell you? Rarely will the source be an outright forgery, but you should still question the validity, reliability and representativeness of the source. It’s also worth keeping in mind that you still need to back up each point you make with evidence. Some commentaries also feature detailed introductions to the books of the Bible. How to write a Commentary Approaches to Literary Criticism IB A1 Paper 1 “Your task is not so much to discuss what is being said, rather it is to discuss how it is being said.” Theme (The) – also Topic & Subject • What is the subject and concern of the text? FREE 7+ Commentary Writing Samples and Templates in PDF How to write a commentary ib myp english 9 Lesson commentary for 'Write a conclusion to an informational text using the reserve funnel method' How 'Writing Unseen Commentaries' will help you If you are an International Baccalaureate student following the Language A (English) Literature course, the Help Book will be invaluable to you as you prepare for the important Literary Analysis or Literary Commentary part of the final written exam. Assess briefly the achievements and significance of the passage, both in itself and in relation to the work from which it is taken. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. The point is, the difference is functional – not so much about what the source is, but how it’s used. Without the secondary sources and other primary sources, we don’t know what they hold back. More than naming it, this means identifying the type of source it is. 2. Historians often disagree over what "the facts" are as well as over how the… Consider the particular type of source. ( Log Out /  Your thesis statement should explain your stance or argument about the text. ( Log Out /  (a.k.a., Making) History At first glance, writing about history can seem like an overwhelming task. Coronavirus (Covid-19): Latest updates and information, FAQs in response to the SSLC Term 2 Survey, Corruption in Britain and its Empire 1600-1850 (HI2D2), Guide to Writing a Commentary on Primary Source(s). What sort of historian, trying to understand what about the past, would find this source useful? (I’m sure you do something like that already.) It is doubtful whether any of them were committed to writing before the Christian Era. Would you say this is the same as what’s expected at A Level? They are written as though they are collections of information. There’s a wealth of methodological literature on many different source types, so make sure you’re aware of what the issues are with the source in front of you. Maybe next time. Sounds like an interesting exercise. There are standard rules for how to write a thesis statement, a topic sentence, a blended quotation, etc. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Examples of Commentary. Change ). More than that and the danger is you end up just writing a standard essay that draws heavily on primary sources. So it’s no surprise that a common assignment in a History degree is to write a source commentary or analysis. Great article! Put your source in context. However, I would advise against using the term bias. In order to maintain secrecy the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was printed out on a hand press a few hours before the Rising. Over the course of your source commentary, there are five things you need to make sure you do. Here is a suggested sample document analysis. You will be able to write an essay that uses embedded quotations to provide evidence in your response to an expository or a literary text. The commentaries include the instructional context, student text, analysis, and instructional implications. Alternative assignments of this sort can be worrying, since they’re self-evidently rather different from a standard essay. A commentary is one type of literary work that contains a detailed analysis of an article, story or a passage of text. However, for the historian seeking to understand how university students were taught History in the early twenty-first century, it fits. 3. Whether you’re new to commentaries or you’re looking for examples of thoughtful, biblical teaching, you can’t go wrong with a devotional commentary. Commentaries are meant to be used alongside the Bible text to offer deeper insight, explanation, illustration, and historical background. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  It sounds like you have a great family collection. A fourth kind of commentary is a technical or critical commentary which tends to be focused on detailed study of the Hebrew or Greek text, a detailed study of historical, cultural, social, religious background. Knowing the culture and history surrounding your passage is important for understanding it. I’ve recently had students use newspaper and periodical databases to select articles and write headnotes for a source book on a specific subject. Most people believe that history is a "collection of facts about the past." ( Log Out /  That was very useful. Thanks a lot, George! As ever, the advice of the tutor setting and/or marking your work trumps all else, but here’s my checklist: 1. So what does writing this sort of assignment entail? So it’s no surprise that a common assignment in a History degree is to write a source commentary or analysis. It would be unrealistic to expect one source to provide the answer to every question. Please let us know if you agree to functional, advertising and performance cookies. This is reinforced through the use of textbooks used in teaching history. Thanks Nandini (and sorry for the delay in replying). A document may be of various types: a written document, a painting, a monument, a map, a photograph, a statistical table, a film or video, etc. However, whether a source analysis or a review assignment, there are some similarities with the usual essay. It is important to select the main points that you are going to be analyzing further in the text and make a summary; but refrain from adding some critical commentary … The assignment will also help prepare you for both a second or third year dissertation, or a third year module, where close engagement with primary material is a basic requirement. Hello George, Great piece! Usually commentaries will acknowledge pertinent cultural-historical context, but you may need to turn to Bible dictionaries and other resources for more information. To write a commentary, write about your observations and analysis of the text you read. You can refer to the online versions of the sample documents (cite as 'Coursework document X, p.y) or go back to the originals. I too try to explain the difference between primary and secondary sources with examples, but try to link it to an overarching theme in my study skills teaching – that the trick in so many cases is matching your sources with the question they can answer, and that not all historians are asking the same questions. But how many sources is optimal to use? Remember, there is no one form for a primary source. How to Write a Good Essay Part 1: Learn the Difference between Commentary and Summary You need to understand the difference between commentary and summary. History’s subject matter is immense, encompassing all of human affairs in the recorded past — up until the moment, that is, that you started reading this guide. Genre If that was the case, historical research would be a lot quicker. We’ll return to what exactly it is. Babylonian and Assyrian text commentaries represent the oldest well defined and cohesive group of text commentaries worldwide. Make sure you polish the literary commentary for style, grammar, and spelling before handing it in so it is at its best. This is where questions of bias might be brought in. It’s starting to be a while now since I was taught in a UK school, and I’m sure things have changed a little, and of course not all UK uni students will have been to school in the UK. This system of analysis is called “versification” of the biblical text. Guide to Writing a Commentary on Primary Source(s) Each week we discuss pieces of primary text, so essentially this exercise replicates on paper the type of analysis you routinely conduct in class. History consists of making arguments about what happened in the past on the basis of what people recorded (in written documents, cultural artifacts, or oral traditions) at the time. In this article, we have discussed the steps in detail to learn and prepare for it, write it effectively and polish it to make it presentable. Yet students often complain of exactly that. Writing static texts. I find they arrive at uni with similar ideas about primary sources. Devotional commentaries, sometimes called “popular commentaries,” help readers explore two main tenets of Bible study—what the text means, and what it means for everyday life. You raise some interesting questions. 5. Likewise, quantitative or visual sources need to be handled appropriately. You can also read the information as a txt file. How to write a commentary The commentary exercise For some of the assessments you are doing, you might be required to produce a commentary to accompany the translation you have produced. But I think it’s ok for them to be suspicious. Consider the limitations of the source. the text. Labelling a source as biased may not be wrong but it is redundant, since every source is biased in some way. Thank you a lot! They are important as indicating the character of the Hebrew text used. Every year, I open these modules (the ones I teach) with the question: “So, what is a primary source?” And every year, Year 1 students respond with conviction: “Primary sources are those sources that were produced at the time of the event, and secondary sources are those that were produced later, hence they are derivative, secondary, less important.” And then begins the process of explaining that while their definition of primary sources may be correct in some cases, being contemporary to the event is not a necessary quality of a primary source; also that secondary sources are not just post-dated and less important, they are professional analyses based on the data that primary sources provide. Cultural-historical context . To write a literary commentary, start by reading the text and creating an outline. All other parts of the essay are more formulaic in nature. You can update your cookie preferences at any time. The following sections will guide you through the steps needed to write your very own commentary formulas. Some of the differences are simply because this is typically a shorter assignment. Although it might be implicit, this is always ultimately the question. I like to think of this as: If this is the answer, what’s the question? By the way, I have a question for you, and for the forum. Then, dive right into a detailed discussion of the text. Writing commentary is undoubtedly the most difficult part of writing any essay. You don't need a question heading unless you would find it useful to give you an angle on the source(s). Anything from the past that helps us learn what happened, and why, is a document. The bread and butter of studying history is the use of primary sources. Remember, the question is not: Is this source useful to historians? Identify and summarise the source. This means asking three questions, each of which will mean drawing upon your wider reading: 4. The assignment will also help prepare you for both a second or third year dissertation, or a third year module, where close engagement with primary material is a basic requirement. A campaign speech or the posthumously published diaries of the same politician, for example. And if you’ve been set something to read for seminars that addresses this, don’t miss the chance to bring it in.