A-Level Students

The History of Richard II: Digital Study Guide

This website is designed to help A-Level Students studying the OCR A Level History – Y104 Enquiry Topic: Richard II 1377 – 1399.

Start by reading the digital study guide, which provides a short introduction to the reign of Richard II.

Then follow the links within the text to read more detail about specific topics. Each link takes you to a summary of a journal article.

What is a journal article?

A journal article is a specialist essay written by a professional historian – usually a lecturer or researcher at a university. Before being published they are peer-reviewed. This means that they are read and critiqued by other professional historians – sometimes articles are rejected and not published on the basis of this peer review. This helps to ensure that the research is of a high quality.

Journal articles usually analyse the existing historical writing (known as historiography) on a very specific topic, and then put forward conclusions based on new evidence or based on a new interpretation of existing evidence. They are primarily written for other professional historians, and as such, they are usually very difficult to read for anyone who isn’t an expert. They use jargon, and assume knowledge on the part of the reader.

University students are expected to read, understand and analyse journal articles. However, even for university students and professional historians, a journal article often takes over an hour to read, longer to digest, and can even longer if you're taking notes.

How can journal article summaries help?

These summaries help you to:
  • Understand complex ideas - by providing a summary of an article’s main conclusion and key points in an easy to read format
  • Save time studying – know if an article of relevant to your studies or interests in seconds
  • Revise more efficiently – consolidate what you’ve learnt by using our article summaries as quick recap
You can see an alphabetical list of journal article summaries.
Refer to journal articles in your essays and exams to demonstrate to your teachers and markers that you understand advanced historical research.

External Resources


The National Archives: Richard II
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/richard-ii/
Introduces (with images of the original documents) primary sources that help the answer the question: Were the troubles facing England in the 1370s and 1380s due to Richard II’s age and inexperience?

 Luminarium Encyclopedia Project: Richard II
http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/richard2.htm
Detailed introduction to the reign of Richard II and key topics based on excerpts from Encylopedia Britannica 11th Edition (1910).

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