how to write a commentary on a historical text
Eventually, students come around, but they are quite suspicious initially, which makes me think that I must be working against something they have been taught in high school. 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' 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. Sometimes they will put Hebrew and Greek in the footnote, but not in the main body of the text. Although it might be implicit, this is always ultimately the question. The exact schema of your assignment will depend on the nature of the source. You do need to establish what your source is, when and why it was produced, by whom, and what form it takes – as well as the basic content, the central message and perhaps the structure of the source – to give you a platform for the following commentary. The following sections will guide you through the steps needed to write your very own commentary formulas. This is reinforced through the use of textbooks used in teaching history. The Bible, like any book, is a product of its time. If that was the case, historical research would be a lot quicker. Summarise your findings, drawing together the different aspects of the text that you have discussed in your commentary. Remember, there is no one form for a primary source. Thanks a lot, George! 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. You raise some interesting questions. 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. You can refer to the online versions of the sample documents (cite as 'Coursework document X, p.y) or go back to the originals. It was produced in two sections and due to the shortage of lettering, the letter “e” had to be improvised, standing out for the rest of the text. 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. So often, students jump straight over the basics to get to the important stuff. To do so, you will need to specify the following: TITLE AUTHOR 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. Commentaries are meant to be used alongside the Bible text to offer deeper insight, explanation, illustration, and historical background. If you’re asked to write under 1,000 words, you really don’t have room for standalone opening and closing paragraphs. Saying so can often mask the need to ask how. Please let us know if you agree to functional, advertising and performance cookies. Labelling a source as biased may not be wrong but it is redundant, since every source is biased in some way. Commentary can be a hard concept to understand without examples to guide you. ( Log Out / By the way, I have a question for you, and for the forum. Knowing the culture and history surrounding your passage is important for understanding it. Now that you have a draft, it is time to contextualize the text in the author's work.. You should start your analytical essay by relating the text with a brief reference to the author, as well as the historical period and philosophical context in which he/she lived. These are some nice examples of just why we need to read our sources critically and dig around them. This is where questions of bias might be brought in. I am going to use it in my teaching this year at the Univesity of Exeter. Here is a suggested sample document analysis. Likewise, quantitative or visual sources need to be handled appropriately. 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. It would be unrealistic to expect one source to provide the answer to every question. The bread and butter of studying history is the use of primary sources. Historians often disagree over what "the facts" are as well as over how the… The closing sentence needs to wrap up the discussion by giving a clear answer to the question. To write a commentary, write about your observations and analysis of the text you read. However, you still need to read around each topic or issue you raise. We use cookies to give you the best online experience. Over the course of your source commentary, there are five things you need to make sure you do. Most people believe that history is a "collection of facts about the past." However, whether a source analysis or a review assignment, there are some similarities with the usual essay. IDENTIFICATION: Start by identifying and locating the text in its right literary and historical context. ( Log Out / Sounds like an interesting exercise. 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. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. It’s also worth keeping in mind that you still need to back up each point you make with evidence. Thank you. You can update your cookie preferences at any time. But when it comes … For one thing, you still need to put in the same amount of effort. Analyzing an Historical Document . Cultural-historical context . Commentary on Quotations from Text in an Interpretive Response (English II Writing) | Texas Gateway On the MA Specialised Translation module, the commentary will be used to compare and contrast the translation approaches taken to texts from two different domains. Without the secondary sources and other primary sources, we don’t know what they hold back. I find they arrive at uni with similar ideas about primary sources. For example, the introduction and conclusion might be far more brief than for a standard essay. Do you think primary and secondary sources are defined differently for students in high school? There are standard rules for how to write a thesis statement, a topic sentence, a blended quotation, etc. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Each week we discuss pieces of primary text, so essentially this exercise replicates on paper the type of analysis you routinely conduct in class. (a.k.a., Making) History At first glance, writing about history can seem like an overwhelming task. 3. That said, not every historian will use every kind of source. Hello George, Great piece! Usually you would be focusing on one source, perhaps two or three compared. ( Log Out / 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? That was very useful. 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. 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. Thanks. Don’t be fooled – there is a question and that question is always ultimately the same. Rather, it’s: In what ways is it useful? In fact, history is NOTa "collection of facts about the past." Writing static texts. Change ). So what does writing this sort of assignment entail? Your thesis statement should explain your stance or argument about the text. I like to think of this as: If this is the answer, what’s the question? 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. While both writing styles can be used to discuss another piece of work (like a play, book, movie, or … Usually commentaries will acknowledge pertinent cultural-historical context, but you may need to turn to Bible dictionaries and other resources for more information. 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. More than that and the danger is you end up just writing a standard essay that draws heavily on primary sources. Some of the differences are simply because this is typically a shorter assignment. It´s a historic – circumstantial text. 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. 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. But how many sources is optimal to use? So it’s no surprise that a common assignment in a History degree is to write a source commentary or analysis. So, my lecture notes on conscientious objectors might be used as a secondary source for historians of the First World War, but as a primary source for historians of education. An increased consideration of material culture in recent years has made this more true than ever. 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 … More than naming it, this means identifying the type of source it is. 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. Some commentaries also feature detailed introductions to the books of the Bible. You can also read the information as a txt file. The opening sentence needs to make it clear what source is under review. Writing commentary is undoubtedly the most difficult part of writing any essay. the text. Reference secondary material in the normal way. But I think it’s ok for them to be suspicious. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Depending on the particular assignment, we might add: in relation to our particular issue. In the History programmes at Exeter Uni, we have several source-centred modules from year 1 onwards. Thank you a lot! Examples from Straub's article Straub's example of Directive commentary A campaign speech or the posthumously published diaries of the same politician, for example. Then, dive right into a detailed discussion of the text. Babylonian and Assyrian text commentaries represent the oldest well defined and cohesive group of text commentaries worldwide. Rarely will the source be an outright forgery, but you should still question the validity, reliability and representativeness of the source. Instructions Listen to some further instructions about the analysis of historical documents as a mp3 file. Yet students often complain of exactly that. Consider the historical, social, economic, political, and religious background of what is in the text and of the time when it was written (the two may not be the same – think about a novel that takes place in the Middle Ages but is written in the 20 th century). 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. Everything around us will be of interest, it’s just a matter of matching up the right source with the right historian, asking the right question.