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A2 History - Debating and very bad at it!

Any A2 historians out there? I'm doing the establishment of Bolshevism module (OCR) and whenever I add debate into my essays it always ends up sounding simplistic and as if I've just copied out of a GCSE textbook.

E.G. ''Marxist historians tend to suggest the terror was limited during Lenin's leadership, and explain it away by asserting it was necessary to advance towards socialism...''

It's the typical...Marxist historians say this and liberal historians say this. It's so difficult to avoid, any advice, from anyone even if you're not doing Russia?
Reply 1
Avatar for Adverse
Adverse
Well if you dont like the sound of it, try to change the wording around a bit.

E.G, Marxist historians elucidate the fact that during Lenin's Reign, the advancement to socialism was made feasible due to the limited use terror.

I dont do russia, but thats how it tends to need to be said in A2.

Hope that helps

Jay
Reply 2
Avatar for Undiscovery
Undiscovery
OP
Yeh, that sounds logical, but my teacher also adds you need to assess the debate. I know this topic has been done till death on here and I;ve searched previous posts but they're mostly a little hazy.
Reply 3
Avatar for nayiseda
nayiseda
Im not absolutely sure but i think the way to assess the debate is to cross-reference different schools of thought either through own knowledge or the sources.

e.g. Although Liberal historians emphasise lenin's dogmatic and divisive personality, Soviet historians use his determinatiion as evidence for his strong and committed leadership abilities, shown by source A.
By doing this you're evaluating the liberal view
Don't get too bogged down in long words and trying to sound clever, though. Your essay has to be readable! "Elucidate", "state that", "it is possible to argue that..." just make for turgid and boring prose. Make it readable!

You could solve your problem of listing the historiographic schools of thought by refering to more that one in each point. Following on from the eg. given by nayiseda above, you could say something like,

"However, determined leader though Lenin might have been, it is perhaps more justifiable to argue that amongst Lenin's flaws were a somewhat dogmatic personality, although this is perhaps not as important as Liberal historians argue."

Don't always use the (arbitrary) names of the historiographic schools of thought, else you'll sound very much like you're listing them over and over again. As above, you can talk about the beliefs of each one without mentioning the name connected with them directly- as long as you mention the name at least sometimes.
Reply 5
Avatar for Adverse
Adverse
I agree with that point of not putting boring words in, but only to an extent. If you read past years A grade answers, you will find that they all use words that make them look clever. Remember, these are history examiners, they dont get bored by anything :biggrin:
There's a fine line, though, between putting long words in because they make sense, and putting them in to make yourself look cleverer. In the former case, you might well look more intelligent; in the latter case, you might just look like a tit. Don't use long words for the sake of using them; saying "I think Hitler was wrong because of the sesquepidelian ideas" looks stupid!

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