A Note on Triads

Looking Forward to the Mid-Term and Final Exams

This short note is designed to introduce you to a fundamental staple of Dr. Werth's much-loved exams: triads. A triad represents a list of three items (people, places, ideas, abstract concepts) that I propose are linked in a fundamental way in the context of the history we are studying. For each triad, I ask that you write a well-developed paragraph* explaining the historical relationship among the three items. The idea is to focus above all on the connections, instead of addressing each item in isolation from the others: How are the items related to one another? In some cases the relationship will be causal (that is, some items caused the others). In some cases, one item may be a context in which the other two items occurred. In still other cases, one item may be an issue over which two people or ideologies disagreed. And so on. In each case, the best answer will state in the paragraph's first sentence the relationship involved; the rest of the paragraph will then elaborate on that relationship, using specific evidence and detail from the materials at your disposal (lecture notes, textbook, and any other relevant materials). Though the three concepts can usually be put together in a variety of ways, make sure that you do not ignore important evidence in doing so.

Why am I telling you about this? Writing about triads "off the cuff" in an in-class exam would be a very difficult task. So I will provide you, prior to the examination, with triads that are likely to appear on the exam. In this way, you will have time to think about the issues involved in each triad before you walk in to the exam. It will probably come as no surprise that this thinking is precisely the thing that I am trying to encourage with this exercise.

Here is an example of a triad: autocracy

serf-owning nobility

state bureaucracy

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* There has been some disagreement about what "a paragraph" is. If you look at any book, you will see that paragraphs vary tremendously in terms of their length and scope; no generic definition is really possible. Therefore, for the purposes of triads, a paragraph is whatever it takes to explain clearly and convincingly the nature of the relationship involved among the given tree items. Some students have demonstrated their ability to write extremely effective answers in just a few sentences. But I will note here the general principle that minimalist answers receive minimalist grades.