How to score TOP marks in your QCAA Modern History IA3 Investigation?

Your Modern History IA3 is your second time writing an extended essay for senior year. You will be provided an extensive amount of preparation and writing time. It is your time to meticulously hone your essay-writing skills to prepare for those challenging time-conditioned exams ahead. So how do you maximise your success in crafting this essay?

What’s the Modern History IA3 Investigation?

This assessment entails students to write a historical essay based on research to create a historical argument that responds to their key inquiry question (KIQ). The essay should use evidence from reliable sources relevant to a chosen KIQ. Your teacher will provide an overview of the genre you will be focusing on, but it is up to you to delve into a specific topic.

It is an assignment with plenty of time to research and understand the history behind your chosen topic. The response is up to 2000 words including the key inquiry question and direct quotes with approximately 15 hours of class time.

Breaking down the Assessment

The marking guide breaks this assessment into 6 unique categories. Below is a breakdown of each category and how they will look in our essay.

Devising and Conducting

This section involves devising a historical question and conducting research linked to the topic. The instrument-specific marking guide (ISMG) breaks this into three points.

• Develop and apply a nuanced key inquiry question
• Discerning the selection of relevant evidence from primary and secondary historical sources
• Acknowledgement of different perspectives in the evidence from historical sources

Therefore, the main task is to select a range of historical sources that work well together for your devised KIQ. After choosing your event/person from the topics provided it is vital to do extensive background reading to understand the situation at the time. I recommend creating a table with the source, ideas/reflections from the source and possible quotes. Below is an example template of it.

By filling out a distinct table, we can see our information and learn about the different events and people involved in our main area of study. Further, by documenting we can refer to it at any time during our continued research, whilst writing the essay and/or using these sources as a main source for our essay. Also, after completing our background reading, we are far more ready to begin devising our KIQ.

When devising the KIQ it is important to establish your main individual/event and their impact on the greater topic. For example, an individual’s actions/motives and their contribution to the greater picture of an event occurring at the time. This is where your background reading will be very useful in ensuring your KIQ is nuanced per the marking criteria.

When creating your KIQ here are a couple of stems that you can choose from.

• To what extent…?
• How important were…to…?
• How significant were the actions of…?
• What were the major factors which led to…?
• To what degree did…actions threaten a balance of power in…?

Comprehending

The comprehending section ties well with the ideas from devising and conducting as it looks for your understanding of your chosen topic and the situation at the time. The background research we complete is vital to do well in this criterion for your essay.

The ISMG breaks down this section into three distinct points

• thorough and mostly accurate use of terms in a historical context
• informed understanding of concepts related to KIQ
• detailed explanation of issues related to KIQ

Therefore, by completing the background reading for this task, getting full marks in the comprehension criterion should be relatively simple. Follow these three ideas,

1)  Throughout your essay ensure that you use historical terms you have seen and learnt from your background reading.

2)  Ensure that any concepts/ideas you introduce in your essay are explained, relevant to your KIQ and accurate for historical contexts.

3)  Go in-depth on how certain issues impact your individual/event to show your understanding of the time and connection to the KIQ.

Keep these tips in mind when writing your essay to ensure we do as well as possible in the comprehension criterion.

Analysing

The criterion for analysing is labelled as one main point

• discerning selection and detailed examination of features of evidence from historical sources.

In your essay, this criterion will be exclusively identified in your body paragraphs when making your points for your historical argument. The features of evidence are the attributes of the information taken from sources required to answer your KIQ. These attributes include origin, motive, audience, perspective, context, and explicit and implicit meanings.

It is important to ensure that every source we utilise includes one of these features of evidence that we can highlight in our essay, supporting our points in each paragraph and our overall argument to our KIQ.

Moreover, ensure that in each paragraph for each source

1)  Be discerning with your use of features of evidence

2) Have a detailed examination of the features of evidence

3)  Include an informed explanation of how evidence contributes to the development of your argument/hypothesis

Additionally, there are several terms I urge you to use to ensure that your marker can easily identify your use of features of evidence. It is simple to include origin, motive, audience and perspective, but for explicit and implicit meanings, we require some terms. I recommend using terms such as emphasises, describes, illustrates, demonstrates and highlights for explicit meaning. For implicit meaning, I recommend using terms such as suggests and implies.

Evaluating

The criterion for evaluating states

discerning and well-reasoned judgements about the usefulness and reliability of evidence from historical sources.

This section requires you to ‘evaluate’ the usefulness and reliability of your sources. I recommend attempting this for most of your sources but not all as it will be seen as repetitive and dry throughout your essay.

For usefulness, state whether a source is useful or not, and provide a reason for this. And for the topic mark to ensure your judgement is well-reasoned, incorporate your features of evidence into this. Utilising your features of evidence for a specific source provides a well-reasoned judgement as to why you have said a source is either useful or not.

The same principle applies to reliability in terms of utilising your features of evidence from the analysing section to create a well-reasoned judgement for your decision on a source’s reliability. However, reliability is said on a scale/measurement. A source can be unreliable, somewhat reliable, reliable to an extent or highly reliable. It’s important to identify the different ‘levels’ of reliability of your sources.

These judgements can also be made using corroboration. If two or more sources support similar ideas in a unique way, such as the implicit meaning of one source corroborates with the motive of another. This enables a judgement on the extent of a source’s reliability.

Synthesising

The criterion for synthesising says

the sophisticated historical argument that skilfully combines evidence from historical sources to justify decisions

This criterion is the highest weight out of all your categories and makes sense as it is most important when writing an essay. The previous criteria look at individual terms and paragraphs and their ideas. Whereas, synthesising ensures your entire essay is cohesive and stems back to your task, answering your KIQ.

A simple strategy of doing so is whilst analysing and evaluating a source explain its ‘use’ and how it contributes to your argument in that paragraph and potentially its relevance in answering the KIQ. Further, your topic sentence and concluding sentence of all your body paragraphs should highlight your argument, and its link to your hypothesis.

Also, this section is seen in your introduction and conclusion. When introducing your different arguments make it clear how they attack your KIQ in various ways and support your KIQ. At the end of your essay ensure that it's clear that every piece of evidence relates explicitly to your arguments and then how this relates to your hypothesis for your KIQ.

By following these tips, you should be on track to master this criterion.

Communicating

The communicating criteria come under three dot points

• conveying ideas related to KIQ clearly and purposefully
• all features of a historical essay based on research are consistently applied
•  minimal errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.

This section of the criteria is straightforward. It relates to the ‘English’ component of writing an essay. It looks to ensure that your writing is clear and ‘makes sense’ and follows the requirements of an essay.

Essay Structure

This historical essay follows the structure below

• Introduction: concise and clear
  • Contextualise the topic (time, place and/or significance)
  • Clearly state your hypothesis
  • Succinctly outline key points of argument to be made in the essay
• Body Paragraphs: clear and focused (2 – 4)
  •  Outline the point being made (topic sentence)
  • Elaborate and support the point, referencing knowledge of the task
  • Support your evidence by analysing, evaluating and linking back to your point
  • Demonstrate how the point contributes to the overall argument
• Conclusion: concise and clear
  • Summarise and draw together key points made in the body of the essay
  • Reiterates how these points support the hypothesis
  • Does NOT introduce any new information, ideas or sources

Final Tips and Tricks

• Proofread your work constantly.
• Plan out your essay and see which sources fit where best
• Try to plan your sources from earliest to latest, but this is not a hard fast rule.
• Settle on your sources as early as possible providing yourself ample time to write the best essay

Ultimately, remember that you are submitting your essay as one body of work. It should flow and read well. I recommend giving it to a sibling or parent to have a read and see if they can follow your argument. Who knows maybe you just might teach them a thing or two about our modern history!

Frequently Asked Questions

What body paragraph structure should I stick to for Modern History essays?

Paragraph structures can be useful, however, focus on making clear points that are simply well-supported by evidence and linked to the overall argument. Focus on what you want your paragraphs to achieve.

How do I refer to my sources in my Modern History Essay?

You should use in-text referencing (author’s last name, Year) for sources but also name them as they are. For example, if there is a diary or newspaper, call it out and mention what it is or if it’s a primary source, who it is. Also, remember to have a Reference list at the end of your essay in alphabetical order.

How much is the Modern History IA3 worth?

This assessment goes to 25% of your modern history grade.

Want more personalised tips to drastically improve your English mark? A private tutor can make the biggest difference!

Written by KIS Academics Tutor, Ragulan Gnanavel. He currently tutors Specialist Mathematics, and Mathematical Methods and specialises in Modern History and Physics assignments. Ragulan is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Actuarial Studies and a Bachelor of Commerce at UNSW. He has outstanding tutoring credentials, and you can view Ragulan’s profile here and request him as a tutor.