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Historiography. (2 Viewers)

Sambam429

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What is historiography? And where are we supposed to use them in the history topics?
 

RainbowFishxx

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Hi, historiography refers to the use of sources to support an argument. It's basically the 'critical' aspect to history. Generally, you should include the views of several different historians in your response, so you might use a few quotes to reinforce your points or raise different viewpoints. You need historiography for every essay in all topics, besides the core WWI topic. Make sure to integrate your sources appropriately to enhance the assertiveness of your response. Hope that helps!
 

enoilgam

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It's basically the 'critical' aspect to history. Generally, you should include the views of several different historians in your response, so you might use a few quotes to reinforce your points or raise different viewpoints. You need historiography for every essay in all topics, besides the core WWI topic. Make sure to integrate your sources appropriately to enhance the assertiveness of your response.
This is a common misconception spread by poorly informed teachers. You DO NOT need historiography in a Modern History response at all, it is not listed as a requirement in either the syllabus or marking criteria. To quote from the Notes from the Marking Centre "In many responses, candidates used historiography (not a syllabus requirement) unnecessarily and its poor use detracted from some answers." This quote also points to a common problem with Modern essays, where students feel compelled to cram their essays with pointless quotes, because they think they need to or because of some imaginary quote (i.e. teachers incorrectly telling students that they need a minimum amount of quotes per paragraph).

That being said, quotes can help lift the quality of your essays, provided that they are correctly used to support your arguments. However, they are not required and an essay can score a high band 6 without any reference to historians.
 

D94

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Hi, historiography refers to the use of sources to support an argument. It's basically the 'critical' aspect to history. Generally, you should include the views of several different historians in your response, so you might use a few quotes to reinforce your points or raise different viewpoints. You need historiography for every essay in all topics, besides the core WWI topic. Make sure to integrate your sources appropriately to enhance the assertiveness of your response. Hope that helps!
Not really. Historiography is more or less the history of history. It is a discipline in its own right. It is how history came to be, whether it was created by man, or whether it created man. Is one historian's account of Napoleon the objective account of his life, or is this merely a story for readers? How do we know the accounts of Napoleon are accurate? etc.

The use of sources to support an argument is merely evidence of your claims. Likewise in a court case or making a claim against someone. It's just evidence.
 

iceworx

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i got a 92 in the modern exam with no historiography whatsoever. so yeah you dont need it
 

-natalie-

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Doing well in modern is more about the quality of your argument, which is improved through the use of evidence as opposed to historiography. Evidence for modern will generally include numerical facts and/or quotes. You can get a high band 6 essay by using both, or just one of the two. If you use neither, however, the quality of your argument will likely be lacking and I doubt that you would be able to scrape more than a low band 6, if at all. Markers love detail in history; if you have a paragraph about, say, a famine that occurred, throw in a statistic about rising bread prices or the number of deaths that occurred. It shows the marker that you have gone further than just the foundations. If you don't have a relevant quote about it, don't try and force it in. It distracts from your argument and is a waste of time when you only realistically have 40 mins to write.
 

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