Studying for the identification section of the midterm

• You will choose five terms to identify from a list of ten. Each ID will be worth 10 points, for a possible total of 50 points.
• In a paragraph, you should include several details and explain the significance of the term.
• When considering significance, think about the changes brought about by the person/event/concept or what the term represents in terms of historical development. When you think of the narrative of the Revolution, what does the term tell us about a specific moment in time? If you look back through your notes, you should notice that I often say things like "This was significant because..." However, I also expect that you can recognize some of these developments and patterns yourself.
• All of terms in the ID section will come from your lecture notes. That's not to say that what you've read can't help you answer the question, only that I won't include terms from the reading that we had not also discussed in class.
• Certain people, documents, events, and manageable concepts are all fair game for the ID section. To give you some idea of range: Louis XVI is too big for an ID, but Calonne isn't. Popular sovereignty is too broad a concept for the IDs, but the suspensive veto isn't.
• Points will be deducted for failing to identify the significance of the term, missing details and factual errors. I will only write "significance," "details," or "errors" to explain why you lost points. If you want a more in-depth explanation, please make an appointment to see me during office hours. In the past, I have tended to essentially re-write people's answers and that makes the grading take too long.
• In terms of "missing details" -- I don't expect you to include every last detail about a term, but there are some details that should stand out to you. These are details which, if left unsaid, would detract from your explanation. For example, you don't have to remember that Necker was Swiss, but I'd have a problem if you forgot he was Comptroller-General.
• When you're studying, you have to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. There are several times that I have mentioned things as asides -- fun facts, bits of trivia, etc. -- and these shouldn't be given as much importance as more serious details. You only have a paragraph, so you need to get to the heart of the matter quickly. The best example I can give actually comes from my Western Civ classes. I would routinely include Macchiavelli's The Prince as an ID term. Far too often, students would write about how he had been imprisoned, how this work was his attempt to get back in the good graces of the Medici family, etc. They would include all those details, see that they had about a paragraph, and then maybe include one line about what Machiavelli's work was about and why it was significant. This is what I mean by the wheat and the chaff. Make sure you focus on the term and why it's important; save the tangential details and background info for the essay question (or the contestant search for Jeopardy!.)