Comments on Essays - Areas for improvement

Comments on essay: Rise of Venice

Question: Here are 3 factors that contributed to the rise of Venice from the 9^th Century

v      Strategic Location

v      Sound political system

v      Venetian Adventurous spirit

Which do you think was the most important? Explain your answer.

Strategic location – The issue of ships safety for both foreign trade ships and Venetian trade ships should be stated due to sheltered lagoons and deep waters with no strong currents. The deep waters ensured that large ships could anchor at Venice without running aground while the absence of strong currents meant that the ships would be damaged as they anchored there. This allowed for trade ships to unload their cargoes safely.

Salt marshes – The salt marshes were valuable to Venice in the early years but since the question covers the period after the 9^th Century, the salt marshes were less of a reason for Venice’s rise.

Here a decent paragraph would be:

Venice’s strategic location à Sheltered lagoons, no strong currents à trade ships both foreign and Venetian could anchor safely at Venice and conduct their business uninterrupted and without concern that they would be affected by poor water conditions à ships and cargo would be safe.

Deep waters around Venice allowed for large Venetian galleys to sail in and out without running aground à ships laden with cargo could also come into Venetian waters à this allowed for trade to take place in large volumes since many ships could dock at Venice at any one time. The deep waters also supported the ship building industry that needed deep waters in its dockyards in order to build and repair the Venetian galleys.

Sound political system. Terms like this need to be defined in a way that helps you answer the question. If you wish to discuss the inclusiveness of the reformed Venetian government system and the check and balance or the specialization of duties being characteristics of sound political system, then a definition of what a sound political system is will be required.

A sound political system is a government system that improves itself to meet the needs of the country, is designed to be flexible enough to adapt to meet a country’s needs and remain relevant and to be effective.

Hence, we can write the paragraph as such:

A sound political system was one of the reasons for Venice’s rise as Venice’s political system was well-designed enough to adapt to meet the citizens and country’s needs to remain effective. One way was through the specialization of duties. This allowed for government officials to become very good at what they were doing. For example, the senate was created to specialize in areas of foreign relations and the operation of Venetian fleets. Hence, in doing so, these officials became experts at what they were doing and thus efficient and effective. By becoming experts the quality of work produced and the quality of decisions made also improved and this all benefited Venice and led to its rise.

Adventurous spirit

In discussing the adventurous spirit of the Venetians, do note that unnecessary information not regarding the Venetian risk-taking ability is not needed. You should stick information about Venetians being risk-takers and venturing beyond their region to look for new trading opportunities and use Marco Polo as your example. Do not discuss ship building or their Maritime technology because that is NOT part of the answer!! 

Q7. To what extent is membership in a regional organization the best diplomatic strategy for Singapore to follow? Explain.

Comments:

The key to doing well in this question is in addressing the question and show how and why Singapore benefits because of the different methods of diplomacy used. The degree of benefit makes each approach a good strategy.

Key areas for improvement

Instead of discussing Singapore’s membership in a regional organization, students jumped in to discuss regional relations instead of tweaking the facts to answer the question.

It is good to use ASEAN as an example and discuss how membership in a regional grouping gives Singapore the platform to settle differences it may have with states in the region peacefully and WHY this is beneficial for Singapore.

Key point is that by having membership in a regional grouping have several benefits:

e.g. Singapore is able to negotiate as part of the regional grouping from a position of strength with larger states à larger states more willing to listen to the regional grouping like ASEAN and offer better terms in the negotiations to the regional grouping than to Singapore alone à regional grouping has more diplomatic influence/clout à Singapore as part of the regional grouping enjoys these better terms which may not have attained by Singapore if it had negotiated on its own with states like India, China and Russia. 

For international relations, it must also be clear HOW Singapore benefits from such a form of diplomacy.

e.g. Building international relations via membership in international organizations give Singapore the chance to raise its profile when it can play a useful role à For example Singapore chaired the Law of the Sea Conference that decided how states would be given ownership over sea lanes and territorial waters à Singapore also has participated actively in peacekeeping operations by the UN such as in Afghanistan and East Timor à such contributions show Singapore to be a good member of the international community à helps Singapore become better known in the world à good for Singapore’s reputation à more nations may want to do business and trade with Singapore.