[eabw]

I have to do an essay on the long-term and short-term causes of the French Revolution. I'm using this site http://www.strategic...frenchrevo1.gif It has a lot of useful information but I need help sorting out what was long-term and what was short-term.
Also I have to talk about how they affected the course of the uprising. I don't really have a clue for that part.
Lastly, I have to tell which of the causes had the greatest impact.

Thank you!
eabw

[Mr Field]

We are delving into the realms of 'homework completion' rather than 'homework help' here. I am certainly prepared to give you some ideas, but if you have been asked to prepare an essay on this you must talk this over with your teacher further. If you genuinely have no idea about short-term and long-term causes there is a great deal of material to investigate.

I would also suggest that you are going to be unable to answer this question without a great deal more understanding. It is a very interesting question to answer, but you have to understand the short and long term causes as these will help you assess their impact in causing the Revolution and this will then allow you to decide which had the greatest impact.

Each one of your questions follows the others! You cannot just be given answers.

The image you have found is a mind-map with some good ideas. This provides you with the main causes of the Revolution. How about looking through that carefully and then making developing your own ideas.

A cause that is short term would have had an immediate or nearly immediate impact - i.e. it caused something to happen very quicky. A long-term cause is something that has existed for a long time and has built up over time to cause something.

I would suggest downloading and printing off the worksheets on this page: http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/year8links/...orksheets.shtml. They are really good as they are very clearly designed to help you understand the issues.

The first 'causes of the Revolution' sheet begins:

Quote

By the late eighteenth century, France was on the brink of revolution. The reasons had been building up over many years, and mainly concerned the great divide between the nobility and the clergy, and everybody else. The French population was divided into three estates. The First estate was made up of the clergy. It numbered around 100,000 people. The Second estate was made up of the nobility. It numbered around 400,000 people. The Third estate was made up of the bourgeoisie, wage earners, and the peasantry. It made up the majority of the French population.  The first and second estates enjoyed certain privileges that that the third estate did not. Firstly, although they were the richest, they did not have to pay taxes. They were also the only members in society who could hold positions of importance such as Officers in the army. This caused great discontent within the Third Estate.

For now, I would suggest putting together a detailed essay plan and taking it to your teacher. Try and divide the causes you can find into 'short-term' and 'long-term'.

This is a good way to start. Give it a try!

[eabw]

Thank you; I certainly will try your ideas. Do you (or anyone for that matter) have a site or something that gives tips on writing five paragraph essays. This is my real problem. I am just terrible at writing them - they take me forever, and then despite my hard work and time, I don't to do so hot on the grade. Err! By the way, I want to say sorry. I didn't mean for my first post to be more of "homework completion" than a "homework help."

[Mrs Faithorn]

I wonder if your reference to the 'Five Paragraph Essays' indicates that you are a student in the USA? I know that that is a format which American teachers tend to promote and also that there are a great many web sites with advice on how to write one. This site is based in the UK - you may not have realised that. You are still very welcome here, but do be aware that our expertise relates mainly to the UK system.

If you do a Google search using the search term "Five Paragraph Essay" (in quotation marks) then you will find a great many sites.

For example, I did just that and found:
http://www.geocities...Ho/Atrium/1437/
http://cctc2.commnet...ar/five_par.htm
http://www.chci.org/chciyouth/scholarship/...owriteessay.htm

That's just a selection, but there are a great many more hits.

This post has been edited by Mrs Faithorn: 10 December 2004 - 12:59 AM

[eabw]

Wow! I'm usually more observant than that! No, I didn't realize this was a UK site. If only I would have looked at the site address a little closer. You all are making me feel dumb! LOL Yes, I am an American student. Gee, I'm so embrassed by all of this... I think I'm just going to leave for now. Thanks for your help!

This post has been edited by eabw: 10 December 2004 - 01:15 AM

[Mrs Faithorn]

Please don't feel embarrassed. It wasn't my intention to make you feel stupid at all and I'm really sorry if you felt like that.

As I said before you are very welcome here, so by all means post again if you feel we can be of help.