Finishing up the RSR

The Research Study Report. 20% of the marks for History. And a taste of what’s to come with writing college papers. Tomorrow, April 28th, is the official deadline to have it in, written into an official booklet under official supervision in an official school. Most of you have probably already done it and handed it in. Some of you probably did it in fifth year. To be honest, I did most of it over this weekend 😛 But If you’re in one of those schools who’re waiting until the last possible second to get it done, this post’s for you.

It pissed me off how little advice there was for writing this. It’s like trying to grocery shop without a shopping list. You end up with three different bottles of ketchup (although that was mainly because I wanted to do a taste-test). However, I found this guide fairly recently, which turned out to be very very helpful. (You’re wanting to download “b. Student Guide to Research Study Report “) Thanks to the good folks at scoilnet.ie! Ya’ll saved my ass. That file is basically a shopping list of everything you need to have done in your Research Study Report.

I’m going to assume here that, by now, you have it all written up in a handy .rtf document (Rich Text Format is what all the professionals use. Just sayin’) and now it’s time to sweat the details. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably written too much. At least in the Outline Plan and Evaluation of Sources sections.

You see, there are three sections. The above two, and the actual Extended Essay. The booklet has 16 pages. Excluding the front page, the title page and the two back pages, that leaves 12. One for the Outline, one for the Evaluation, ten for the essay. After printing out the booklet and writing into it, I’ve determined I can fit about 8 words per line, totalling about 240 words per page. (And my writing is pretty big. It has a certain whimsical flair to it that I just can’t seem to restrain. Also, I use long-ass words…) Bottomline, is that if you keep your Evaluation and Outline sections to less than 250 words you should be perfectly a’ight.

Also important: I’m told that adding two or three lines onto the end of the page (there’s a blank margin at the bottom) is acceptable, so it’s a good idea to bring a ruler and pencil (eracing the lines later). Also, if you have long-ass URLs, one trick is to use a site like http://tinyurl.com/ to reduce their size.

Another thing to look out for is verbosity. Being more concise is almost never a bad thing, especially in this kind of scenario. I reduced the Outline Plan from 400+ words to 235 (including the citation of a fourth source) just by changing phrases like “Second Lieutenant William Laws Calley was the leader of 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, the unit responsible for the brutal massacre at the My Lai hamlet of Son My village” to “Lt. Calley led C-Company into My Lai”

I think sometimes people can equate being wordy with being smart. Which as any decent writer will tell you is complete bullshizzle. Good writing is about conveying your message with as few words as possible. (Which is why I believe poetry should be considered a whole other artform, seeing as how most of it can be summed up by a couple words: “I’m sad”, “I think I’m gay”, “He doesn’t love me”, etc.)

Overall, the RSR seems like a fairly easy 20%. It’s basically just an extra-long essay that you have months to write (which is thousands of times longer than the essays on the exam, which are only a bit shorter). Although part of it might have been the fact that I picked a project that was interesting enough to research without it feeling much like work. (Note that although it’s an interesting insight into the dark depths of humanity, the My Lai Massacre is not for the faint of heart. You’ve been warned.)

(P.S. Heinz is still the best)

10 thoughts on “Finishing up the RSR”

  1. Hah, as evidence to how little information on the RSR there is:
    This post is actually the FIRST Google hit for ‘leaving rsr’ (fifth if you make it ‘rsr leaving cert’)

  2. Yeah true, when I did the RSR, I also bullshizled the whole thing “Leonardos theory of flight”. Got me a pretty damn good mark! I could get nothing on the RSR anywhere!! We were the second year doing it, you guys being the third of course.

    Also loved you theory on poetry! nice.

    Heinz!!

  3. When I read your tweet I was expecting faaar less history, and faaar more ketchup.
    Mildly disappointed.
    I can’t understand how anyone eats Chef. People tell me there’s no difference. They totally lie.

  4. Chef is crappy, I agree (except the titular character looks like my friend so it’s worth it for slagging-value…)

    I recently got obsessed with ketchup because somebody used this amazingly sweet, tangy ketchup on a sandwich I bought and I’ve been trying to figure out which brand it was…
    Thing is, it’s probably some cheap generic brand used only by delis. It’s a conspiracy!

  5. In 4th year when it came to choosing subjects, I chose business over history simply cause of this project thing…

  6. You happy with that choice?
    Personally, after 3 years of Business I jumped at the opportunity to leave it far, far behind. The you-would-never-believe-it-how-boring-this-guy-is teacher contributed to that a bit.

    But history is one of the few subjects that actually is important to know/comes up in conversation.

  7. I spent so long writing that project into my tiny little booklet, that I shall cry if it doesn’t get 100%.
    And you didn’t take history because of the project? Why ever not? Easy marks.. 😛

  8. Yeah I’ve since realised that history would’ve have been beneficial apres the leaving cert, however business isn’t so bad. I loathed accounting at JC level, but for the LC parts of it are actually interesting. (Shock shock horror) It’s also possible to omit one seventh of the course, which is handy.

  9. Our RSR was due on a Friday morning, so of course, in true me-style… I started writing it up at 8pm- that Thursday evening. So it went in uncorrected. My teacher has no idea what it’s even about at this stage. So yeah, nothing official about it really. She didnt even see my sources because they were blatantly made up. Only fooling myself really I suppose… yada yada yada

    Emerald…That tangy ketchup you are looking for is ‘Candee’ ketchup. It’s the cheapest one on the market… and it seems pretty proud of the fact that it ‘Contains Additives and Sweeteners!’… which doesnt say alot…

    For anyone doing the Leaving ’10 (woah… sounds mad) I highly suggest that you don’t put it off one more day… get started, even reading up on any bit of history that mildly tickles your fancy. There’s a good podcast on the RTE website about it (which I discovered at 4am on that faithful night in April, hours before our deadline)

    Recycle, Stay in School and Fight the Power!
    Peace Out

  10. My RSR is due this week. Almost have extended essay written in official document. Have evaluation of sources done, need to tidy up outline plan. What do I put in the review at end of essay? Any help?

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