12 Coursework Tips Personal Investigation

1.    Plan your coursework before you begin writing.

2.     Review previous student’s coursework and use their structure as a template to inform your writing.

3.     Review the guidelines on the exam website for your coursework and familiarize yourself with the criteria your teacher’s will be using to mark your personal investigation.

4.     Remember you should be the expert in your field of study, so constantly review your argument.

5.   Embed your discussion and argument with the language of source analysis (effectively, correctly and appropriately) so use expression you may have been encouraged to use by your teacher such as validly asserts, credibly, reliability, compelling, justifiably etc..

6.     Don’t just agree with the question, but produce a balanced argument, using a range of sources and historians for both sides.

7.  Whether you decide to support the question or disagree with the question or offer a synthesis approach as provided by Kershaw, ensure you sustain your focus, support with historical evidence, historians analysis and assess and examine the reliability and credibility of your argument.

8. You cannot say something is credibly and then deny its credibility in the next sentence.

9. You must build up a sustained argument to support or refute the historian’s credibility throughout.

10. Support every point with as many historians as you can.

11. Link each paragraph back to the question.

12. Come to a conclusion which answers the question definitely.