A-Level History Coursework: 8 Traps Students Fall Into (and 8 Ways to Avoid Them)

Writing an extended piece of coursework, or non-examined assessment (NEA) as part of A-Level History is no easy task. In fact, it's probably the trickiest single thing A-Level History students have to do. If students are to succeed, they need to know what to look out for. So do we, as their teachers!

Here are 8 of the most common traps that I've seen our students fall into over the past few years and 8 ways to avoid them.

                        

(The accompanying examples are all hypothetical and are meant to illustrate good practice to students only. They are not directly relevant in context to our NEA topic of the Crusades.)

This post is available as a downloadable document here.

1. Introductions have to ‘set the scene’ first

A story begins with a statement of context as a peek into the bigger picture: the better the story, the more intriguing the peek. Unfortunately, your coursework essay is not a story, but a defence of an argument. The overall argument (your thesis) must be the first (and last) thing the reader encounters in your essay. Always start your introduction (and end your conclusion) with a clear thesis statement.

A poor one The English Civil War, waged between Parliament and the King, raged in England for almost a decade and ended with the beheading of Charles I, leading to an unprecedented period of republican rule in Britain.

A better one The English Civil War, waged between Parliament and the King, occurred due to a complex interplay of factors, the most significant of which was ultimately religious tensions between different Christian denominations in England.

 

2. Sources and historians’ interpretations can be appraised without reference to wider historical context

Students often try to have clearly separate sections of their essay in which they address historians’ interpretations and primary sections. This is fine as a structure, but it does not mean that analysis of historians’ interpretations and primary sources should be done without reference to the wider context addressed in your essay. Make sure you are supporting (or challenging) what a historian or primary source tells you using other specific historical details from your own research.

A poor one (historian’s interpretation) Sheila Fitzpatrick indicates that a major social crisis gripped Russia in 1917. She notes that the Provisional Government failed to address the root causes and ‘procrastinated on the issue of land reform’ and ‘rejected [workers’ demands] on the grounds of the wartime emergency’. Clearly, therefore, Fitzpatrick lays the blame for continued political unrest in 1917 at the door of the government and its inaction.

A better one (historian’s interpretation) Sheila Fitzpatrick indicates that a major social crisis gripped Russia in 1917. She notes that the Provisional Government failed to address the root causes and ‘procrastinated on the issue of land reform’ and ‘rejected [workers’ demands] on the grounds of the wartime emergency’. This is validated by multiple overlapping crises which drove ordinary people to take matters into their own hands and fuelled support for the radical left. Peasants began to seize landlords’ land and property from the early summer, often claiming without evidence that the Provisional Government had passed laws allowing them to do so. Workers initiated regimes of ‘workers’ control’ in which they sought to monitor management and regulate working conditions in their own factories. These actions did, as Fitzpatrick notes, exacerbate the social crisis and undermined the authority of the Provisional Government.

 

A poor one (primary source) Churchill’s ‘Fight them on the beaches’ speech of June 1940 sought to rally the support of the British. He states that ‘if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home’. As the British Prime Minister at the time, Churchill was trying to put a brave face on the British situation and rally morale. His defiant tone is strengthened by his statement that ‘We shall go on to the end, […] we shall fight on the beaches…’ This demonstrates Churchill’s determination not to let Britain be conquered by Nazi Germany.

A better one (primary source) Churchill’s ‘Fight them on the beaches’ speech of June 1940 sought to rally the support of the British. He states that ‘if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home’. As the British Prime Minister at the time, Churchill was trying to put a brave face on the British situation and rally morale. This was particularly important following the British evacuation from Dunkirk just days before. Forced by the rapid German advance through northern France towards the coast, the Dunkirk evacuation in fact saw British troops leave French soil and implied the defeat of both the French army and the British Expeditionary Force. Yet Churchill remains defiant, arguing ‘We shall go on to the end, […] we shall fight on the beaches…’ His determination not to capitulate to Nazi Germany sought to boost the confidence of Parliament and the British public that Britain could ultimately withstand a German invasion of the British mainland which was planned under Operation Sealion following the capture of most of mainland Europe.

 

3. Eyewitness accounts of events are more valuable or reliable than second-hand accounts

It’s tempting to consider people who saw something happen with their own eyes as more ‘reliable’ or even less ‘biased’ than people who are repeating information they have heard from other people. This is very often not the case. Eyewitnesses cannot see everything that happened in an event – at best, they can give a small snapshot of a particular moment in time. Non-eyewitnesses may in fact be in a better position to give information about historical events, as they often bring together details from different sources in order to make a wider point. Avoid falling into the trap of saying eyewitnesses are more reliable by considering carefully what a source and its author is really able to tell you about.

A poor one Primo Levi’s account of Auschwitz in If This is a Man can be considered trustworthy and non-biased because he is recalling what he himself saw. As a prisoner in the Monowitz camp of Auschwitz-Monowitz from February 1944 until January 1945, Levi is one of a small number of eyewitnesses who survived what the Nazis did first hand and went on to publish his experiences. He is therefore a highly trustworthy and reliable source for understanding how genocide became possible in the twentieth century.

A better one Primo Levi’s account of Auschwitz in If This is a Man gives a unique insight into conditions in one section of the camp, Auschwitz-Monowitz. It was here that Levi, thanks to his scientific expertise, was assigned as a slave labourer from his arrival at the camp in February 1944 to its liberation in January 1945. His vivid retelling of brutality towards labourers in the Monowitz camp section demonstrates the dehumanisation of even those Jews whom the SS saw as economically useful, enabling them to commit genocide even when it was evidently against the rational aims of the Nazi war machines. Nevertheless, Levi was one of a very small minority who survived and can tell us nothing of the personal experiences of the 1.1 million Jews and others who were murdered in the main Auschwitz-Birkenau camps.

 

4. A historian’s academic qualifications demonstrate the validity of their argument

Having a PhD and working at a top university might sound very impressive, but it tells us very little about how valid a historian’s argument may be. Students often reference Historian X having a PhD and working at the University of Manchester since 1998 as a way of demonstrating that they can be trusted. But all this really tells us is that they have the minimum qualification considered necessary to be a professional, academic historian. Assuming you are not going to be using work from non-academic historians as an interpretation (please don’t!), almost all your historians will hold a PhD and teach in a university. It is much more convincing to examine a historian’s past academic publication record and their research interests in order to establish their credentials for writing the book or article you are referencing. Make sure you research what other books and articles your historian has written and what they say their research interests are (you will usually find all this information on their university webpage).

A poor one Barbara Alpern Engel holds a PhD in Russian history from Columbia University and has worked in leading American universities since, including Colorado University. This demonstrates that her interpretations of Russian history are reliable.

A better one Barbara Alpern Engel, an expert on gender relations in late-Tsarist and Soviet Russia, argues in her recent history of marriage and the household that economic changes progressively eroded traditional patriarchal and marital structures amongst Russian peasants. Engel’s interpretation reflects her own extensive research into gender relations and, in particular, the role of women and family life in Russia and the USSR since the 1970s. Her major works make her one of the most internationally respected scholars of gender in Russia and the Soviet Union include one of the most important a general studies of Russian and Soviet women (Women in Russia, 1700-2000) as well as more specific social histories of women in the home and workplace (Between the Fields and the City: Women, Work, and Family in Russia, 1861-1914).

 

5. Analysis of provenance can reveal ‘bias’ which may fundamentally undermine the validity of a source or interpretation

The word ‘bias’ is not your friend when it comes to historical analysis. Some historians do use it, but when they do they almost always mean a source or interpretation has an opinion. This is very different to how ‘bias’ is used by most students in their coursework – to mean an unbalanced, invalid, unjustified opinion. If you claim that a source or interpretation has ‘bias’, you are therefore saying almost nothing at all: all sources and interpretations reflect some kind of opinion (although if it’s a historian’s interpretation, this opinion will almost certainly not be ‘biased’ in the sense that we use the word in our everyday language!), so therefore you’re simply stating a very basic fact without advancing your analysis in any way. Go carefully through your NEA drafts and make sure the word ‘bias’ is replaced by something more appropriate – it should not appear anywhere in your coursework!

A poor one Eric Hobsbawm was a very famous and respected historian, but his interpretation of the causes of the Cold War may be considered biased because he held Marxist views. This means that he could have been unfairly sympathetic to the Soviet Union and too critical of the USA in his writing.

A better one Eric Hobsbawm’s interpretation is influenced by his Marxist analysis of history, which meant he argued that economic and ideological differences were key factors in driving international conflict and war in the 20th century.

 

6. Appraisal of an interpretation can be made without reference to other historians’ views

If you argue that a historian’s work is, or may be, convincing because of who they are or their academic qualifications, you’re simply missing the point. Historians set out to answer research questions when they write books or articles. How well they answer these questions is usually judged by other historians, who reference their work and write reviews. Book reviews are very easy to find online (a simple Google search will often find you dozens) – they are short, easy to read, and will give you a good sense of what other historians think of the work of the historian you are using as an interpretation. Reviews can often be critical, as well as positive, giving you a real sense of the strengths and weaknesses of an interpretation. When considering how convincing a historian’s interpretation is, always check what other historians have said about it!

A poor one Barbara Alpern Engel holds a PhD in Russian history from Columbia University and has worked in leading American universities since, including Colorado University. This demonstrates that her interpretation of changing gender relations in Russia and the USSR is convincing.

A better one Engel’s interpretation reflects her own extensive research into gender relations and, in particular, the role of women and family life in Russia and the USSR since the 1970s. Her major works include general studies of women in Russia and the Soviet Union as well as more specific social histories of women in the home and workplace. Engel’s recent study, Marriage, Household, and Home in Modern Russia has been praised for ‘plac[ing] at the centre women, marriage, and family life rather than state politics and institutions’ and ‘mak[ing] the sharpest case yet for placing gender and culture at the centre of the narrative’.

 

7. Historians’ interpretations exist independently from the source base they use

Most students read a historian’s interpretation without ever considering the sources that the historian has used to develop their argument. This is a real mistake. The sources a historian uses are extremely important. They reveal which work (including both primary and secondary sources) a historian considers to be important when thinking about a topic. They can also show whether a historian has focused on a particular type of source or overlooked others. When looking at a historian’s interpretation, go through their footnotes and bibliographies to see where they get their information from and consider how this might influence their argument.

A poor one Niall Ferguson’s famous book, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, shows a great deal of sympathy to British perspectives of empire. In general, it considers the British Empire to have been a positive force which improved and developed the world.

A better one Niall Ferguson’s book, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, relies excessively on general histories of the British Empire and global economy, including a number of works which openly celebrate empire as a major human achievement. His failure to cite any original archival research or to engage with sources critical of empire limits the book’s ability to critically analyse the impact of empire on non-Europeans. This may help explain why Ferguson’s book is so positive and sympathetic towards the British Empire, which he considers to have been a positive force which improved and developed the world.

 

 8. Causal factors can be hierarchically ranked and analysed in isolation from each other

Students very often say a factor is ‘the most important reason for…’ or ‘the most important consequence of…’ in their arguments. This is fine. But it also has to be clear that other factors are not just important but also linked to your most important one. Think carefully about how one factor might be impacted on by other factors and explain this in your introduction, conclusion, and where possible main paragraphs.

A poor one Technological developments were by far the most important reason for the expansion of the Spanish Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries as new models of ship and weaponry allowed Spanish Conquistadors to sail around the globe and defeat enemies in battle. At the same time, it is clear that other factors, including religious motivation and finance, played an important role.

A better one Technological developments were by far the most important reason for the expansion of the Spanish Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. New models of ship and weaponry allowed Spanish Conquistadors to sail around the globe and defeat enemies in battle, although the development of such technology was itself made possible by finance. Indeed, Spain’s financial power was in turn expanded by further colonisation of the Americas, in particular, creating a virtuous circle in which the expansion of empire made further expansion possible. Meanwhile, the motivation to use new technology for conquest was also strengthened by religious conviction, which spurred on Conquistadors to attack and conquer non-Christian peoples.