History Alevel Essay Structure

Hello, I’m doing alevel history and for as long as I can remember my school has taught to write essays in a “P.E.E.L.E.R” format - meaning point, evidence, evidence, link, evidence, reach conclusion.
This seems very complicated and, for me, hasn’t been very helpful.
Does anyone know of another essay/paragraph structure which helped them get the high marks at a level? Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

thatcollegegirl

16

Original post by Qwerty7654321

Hello, I’m doing alevel history and for as long as I can remember my school has taught to write essays in a “P.E.E.L.E.R” format - meaning point, evidence, evidence, link, evidence, reach conclusion.
This seems very complicated and, for me, hasn’t been very helpful.
Does anyone know of another essay/paragraph structure which helped them get the high marks at a level? Thanks :smile:

What exam board are you on? I'm on Pearson Edexcel.

Reply 2

Qwerty7654321

OP

6

Original post by thatcollegegirl

What exam board are you on? I'm on Pearson Edexcel.

I’m on OCR :smile:

Reply 3

Sinnoh

22

Original post by Qwerty7654321

I’m on OCR :smile:

I sort of agree with the format you mentioned, I'm just not that strict with it. It will also depend on the question - e.g. in your depth study topics you need a lot of close detail, with the thematic study it's, well, thematic and the essays should reflect that and then it's different again for the essay on historians' viewpoints. You should never open a paragraph by stating a fact though. If there's one rule for all essays, it's that.

What topics are you doing?

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 4

Qwerty7654321

OP

6

Original post by Sinnoh

I sort of agree with the format you mentioned, I'm just not that strict with it. It will also depend on the question - e.g. in your depth study topics you need a lot of close detail, with the thematic study it's, well, thematic and the essays should reflect that and then it's different again for the essay on historians' viewpoints. You should never open a paragraph by stating a fact though. If there's one rule for all essays, it's that.

What topics are you doing?

I’m doing the Unification of Italy, Russia and its Rulers and Anglo Saxon England :smile:

Reply 5

Sinnoh

22

Original post by Qwerty7654321

I’m doing the Unification of Italy, Russia and its Rulers and Anglo Saxon England :smile:

oh damn that's none of the ones I did. But maybe I can still be of help!
In my thematic study topic, I was told to split the 25-mark essays into three themes - because I was doing Civil Rights in the USA, for me it was political rights, social rights, economic rights. Now looking at the kinds of essays they set for the Russia topic there doesn't seem to be such a neat catch-all layout, but I do recommend you have a look at the examiners' reports for the exams as they contain exemplar essays.
For instance, with the question "‘The Tsars wanted to reform the nature of government more than the communists.’ To what extent do you agree with this view of the period 1855–1964?", you can split it into the structure of the government, (e.g. the Tsar's initial reliance on ministers, the Duma, the Soviets), political ideology (e.g. autocracy vs communism) and a third theme could be the enforcing of that power through repression - in this respect, there's definitely a lot more of a continuation!
It's easy when doing the 25-markers to fall into a trap of just telling a story, but as long as you avoid that and stick to arguing a point and backing it up with relevant evidence, you don't need to worry so much about a particular kind of paragraph structure.

Reply 6

redmeercat

15

Original post by Qwerty7654321

I’m on OCR :smile:

For the 25 marker, I had a very specific structure for each main paragraph:

Point
Fact relating to initial argument
- sub fact to support this
- sub fact countering
- sub fact to refute the countering fact

Fact countering initial argument
- sub fact to refute this
- sub fact to support it
- sub fact to refute the supporting fact

Fact relating to initial argument
- sub fact to support this
- sub fact countering
- sub fact to refute the countering fact

I'm sure that there are lots of good methods, but I liked this as I knew how many facts I needed to learn per theme, and I got full marks on this question thanks to this structure! But again, lots of good structures available... Gotta find what works for you and for the mark scheme!

My essay structure:

Intro
P1
P2
P3
Conclusion

REMEMBER: you need to specifically refer to the question at every opportunity in order to stay focused on the topic and get the marks, even if you feel like you're repeating yourself.

(edited 3 years ago)

History Alevel Essay Structure

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