Move from a Historical Interest to a Research Topic 2
Work with Bibliographies 3
Spend Time in an Academic Library 6
Use Reference Sources for Background Information 10
Conduct a General Search on the Internet 12
Critically Assess Sources on the Internet 14
Approach Your Topic from a Particular Angle 16
Browse for More Sources 16
Form a Hypothesis 17
Craft a Proposal 18
Write an Annotated Bibliography 19
Talk to People about Your Topic 19
If You Have to Abandon a Topic, Do It Early 20
2xInterpretingSourceMaterials22
Distinguish Primary Sources from Secondary Sources 22
Conduct Interviews Systematically 25
Consider Visual and Material Sources 27
Refine Your Hypothesis 29
Be Sensitive to Points of View in Your Sources 31
Select the Most Important Source Materials 32
Take Notes by Being Selective 33
Place
Don't Plagiarize 47
Cite
4 s UsingSourcestoMakeInferences53
Be True to Recognized Facts 54
Transform Facts into Evidence 54
Investigate Your Facts 54
Check the Internal Consistency of Primary Sources 55
Check Primary Sources aga i nst Each Other 56
Compare Primary Sources w ith Secondary Sou rces 57
Combine Sources to Make Inferences 59
Move from Inferences to Arguments 61
Make Reasonable Inferences from Your Sources 62
Make Inferences That Are Warranted 62
Avoid Anachron isms 65
5 s Organizing a FirstDraft69
Craft a Thesis Statement 69
Create a Draft Outline 70
Start to Write a Fi rst Draft 76
Catch You r Reader 's Attention, but Do It Gently 77
State Your Inte ll ectual Interests Early 79
Rev iew t he Historical Literature 82
Bui ld Your Essay w ith Good Paragraphs 83
Define Your Key Terms Early 85
Set an Appropri ate Tone 87
Treat Other Writers w ith Consideration 89
Account fo r Counterarguments 90
Lead Your Readers to an Interesti ng Conclusion 92
6xStructuringYourPaper with GoodNarrativeTechniques97
Build a Narrative That Tells a Story 97
Write a Narrat ive to Support an Argument 98
Combine Chronology w ith Causat i on 98
Get a Sense of Change and Continuity 100
Select the Key Parti cipants i n You r Story 100
Find Your Vo i ce as a Narra t or 101
Choose Your Beg i nn i ng and End 102
Supp ly a Mean i ngfu l Ti tl e 104 7
Write (Mostly) in the Past Tense 108
Put Your Thoughts in an Intelligible Order 110
Begin a Sentence on Common Ground and Gradually Build a New Point 111
Place the Emphasis at the End 113
Construct Parallel Forms 113
Vary the Form and Length of Sentences 114
Break the Rules If You Must 115
8=cChoosingPreciseWords117
Be Concise 117
Write in Lan guage That Your Audience Can Easily Understand 117
Avoid Both Pretentious and Colloqu ial Language 119
Avo id Euphemisms 120
Choose Figurative Language Carefully 120
Eschew Cliches 121
Don't Use Unfamiliar Foreign Words 121
Be Aware of Changes to Usage 122
Check for These Common Diction Prob lems 124
9=cRevisingandEditing131
Get Some Perspective 131
Revise Your Draft 132
Evaluate Your Arguments and Narratives 133
Evaluate Your Sentences and Wo rd Choices 134
Proofread the Final Draft 134
Check the Formatting 136
Submit Your Paper 136
Preface to the Fifth Canadian Ed ition ix
PrefacetotheFifth CanadianEdition
As the conventions of writing history change, so too must the advice we give to those who are learning the craft. In this new edition of Writing History: A Guide for Canadian Students, we have taken the basic structure of the US edition, adapted it with material drawn from the most recent Canadian edition, and introduced additional features to ensure that the advice being presented remains consistent with current best practices.
Several significant modifications in this fifth Canadian edition help bring Writing History up to date with the expectations of history instructors and the needs of their students. One important change is in the selection of examples that illustrate authentic historical problems and good historical writing. To make this book more relevant not only to students of Canadian history, but also to students studying histories of other places, we now supply a better balance of Canadian and non-Canadian examples and a wider representation of different periods, places, and approaches. Other changes extend the book's usefulness for today's students with practical advice on how to face challenges both in print and online. We propose realistic guidelines to help students find, select, and use sources from academic libraries and the Internet at large, and we offer suggestions for editing that take into account both the page and the screen. Three appendices provide further guidance in conveniently condensed form. The first appendix helps students better understand the different kinds of history assignments typically given in university and college courses. The second is a citation guide that combines basic instruction on when and how to write notes and bibliographies with samples of citations formatted in accordance with the latest edition of The Chicago Manual ofStyle . The third appendix is a list of suggested resources for research and writing that students can use as starting points in their projects. We have adjusted language
throughout the book to reflect contemporary usage, while acknowledging that tensions sometimes arise when new ideas begin to challenge old presumptions in the politically charged world of historical writing.
Much of the material in this edition comes directly from the work of William Kelleher Storey and Towser Jones in earlier editions: it is their wisdom and care that have made Wri ting History so helpful to so many students since its first publication in 1999.
For the adaptations and additions that I have been able to supply, I owe a debt of gratitude to many people. The historians I've had the privilege to learn from and the students I've had the honour to teach have provided more insight than I can measure. Some of the best observations about what real students find genuinely helpful have come from teaching assistants, and I hope that they will find here a serviceable guide for when they are teaching the skills of research and writing. I would like to thank the people at Oxford University Press for giving me the opportunity to work on this book, and particularly Peter Chambers and Elizabeth Ferguson, who have been kindly and calmly supportive throughout the process. I would also like to extend my thanks to my colleagues at the University of Toronto, especially those in the department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga, for allowing me to teach history in an environment made rich by both tradition and innovation. And finally, as always, I thank my friends and family for being always there.
Mairi Cowan
University of Toronto Mississauga
Introduction
What is history? No single definition is universally accepted, but historians do generally agree on several points. History is not a compilation of names and dates to be memorized and regurgitated Nor is it the simple description of "what happened" in the past. History is more than a matter of opinion or a declaration of right and wrong answers. It demands critical analysis, questioning and exploration, selection, debate, and interpretation. It reflects the time in which it is written, but remains true to the time it interprets.
Historians study the human past, ancient and recent, to understand not only what happened, but how and why, what it means and why it matters. And it does matter. Understanding the past gives us a basis for understanding the present. In the words of Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, "history is not a dead subject. . .. [It] lies under the present, silently shaping our institutions, our ways of thought, our likes and dislikes:''
The craft ofhistory requires making decisions. First, historians choose the subjects they think are most important. Then they select the source materials they judge most likely to shed useful light on those subjects. After carefully analyzing all the evidence they can find, they develop arguments and draw conclusions in the light of that evidence. Finally, they decide how they will present their arguments in a way that balances respect for their subjects with the needs of their readers.
The best historians are so skilled at making choices that they can transform pain talc' . d . s mg research mto seamless arguments an narratives. But don't be fooled: the decisions that fill the process of writing are diffi. It d • • f · . cu , an wntmg history well takes a lot o tune and patience.
, :11e art of selection has been central to Western historical wntm~ ever since the time of the ancient Greeks. When the Atheman general Th di h ucy des composed his history of t e
Peloponnesian Wars, around 400 BCE, he could hardly report everything that had taken place over thirty years of battles and defeats. Instead, he chose to focus on decisive moments. Among these was the famous eulogy fo r the Athenian dead delive red by the statesman and general Pericles:
I have no wish to make a long speech on subjects familiar to you all: so I shall say nothing about the warlike deeds by which we acquired our power or the battles in which we or our fathers gallantly resisted our enemies, Greek or foreign. What I want to do is, in the first place, to discuss the spirit in which we faced our trials and also our constitution and the way of life which has made us great. After t hat I shall speak in praise of the dead.2
Thucydides chose to make this speech a part of his history no t just because it was moving, but because he believed it to be instructive on the nature of Athenian democracy.
Like Thucydides, historians also choose subjects that they believe can shed light on the causes of change over time. To that end, they must learn how to find sources, how to report on them faithfully, and how to use them to make inferences about the past. Their approaches vary widely, and can incorporate methods and insights not only from other historians but from scholars in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences as well.
Even historians who all work in the same narrow geographical and chronological specialties approach their subjects from many different perspectives. In fact, the variety of angles from which historians approach their subjects is almost endless, and therefore, not surprisingly, historians frequently disagree with one another. Such debates are so common that there is a whole subfield of the discipline called historiography, the study of Writing history- in a sense, the history of history. Despite the diversity of their approaches, however, all historians share a commitment to accurate reporting, persuasive argument, and clear
communication. In short, all historians share a commitment to good research and writing.
Writing History is designed to introduce students to the discipline of history and its challenges. Chapter by chapter, the book explains the processes of planning; finding a topic; researching, analyzing, and incorporating sources; building arguments; and creating a finished work. Appendices offer additional help with an explanation of conventions in typical kinds of history assignments, a citation guide, and suggested further resources for research and writing. Key terms are bolded at first use and clearly defined in a glossary at the end of the book, while boxes at the end of each chapter highlight its key points.
There may be times in your studies when you find it useful to read this book straight through, and other times when you turn to it instead for answers to specific questions. However you use Writing History, we hope that it serves you as a helpful guide to learning and writing about the human past.
Notes
l Margaret MacMillan, The Us es and Abuses of History (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2008), xi
2 - Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans Rex Warner (New York: Penguin Books, 1954; repr 1984) , 145
1 GettingStarted
There are many reasons to write history. Historians may be interested in explaining a particular source, in which case they must assess its significance in light of other sources. Perhaps they begin with an analytical problem that they have noticed in some body of historical literature, or with a contemporary problem affecting the world in which they live, and then they must seek out sources as a way of exploring the problem. In any case, the only way to write history is to engage with source materials and other writers. This is challenging because it is not always a simple matter to find suitable sources and engage with the right writers. A full, careful review of the largest possible number of sources and writers will help historians express ideas confidently, and this chapter provides guidance for how to start that review and choose a topic for a research essay. (There are several types of assignments that history instructors commonly set. Students who are working on primary source analyses, book or article reviews, annotated bibliographies, historiographical papers, reading response journals, research proposals, oral presentations, posters, or final exams can refer to Appendix A, "Different Kinds of History Assignments:')
Sometimes a research essay is limited to the scope of the course. At other times, such as with an honours thesis, the subject of the paper can be more open-ended. The details of an assignment may vary, which means that students will need to pay careful attention to their instructor,s prompts, but they should remember that writing about history is about providing analysis, not just collecting facts.
Explore Your Interests
People are probably asking you about your interests all the time. At a party, you might find that the best approach is to condense your interests into a crisp one-liner. When you write history, you will grapple with topics and questions that cannot be summarized so neatly. Research projects present opportunities to clarify and deepen your interests.
Historians become interested in research topics for all sorts of reasons. The history of medicine may interest you because you want to become a doctor; the history of physics may interest you because you are concerned about nuclear proliferation. Perhaps some historians have inspired your interests, through either their teaching or their writing. Or an instructor may simply be requiring you to write about a specific topic. Whatever the motivation, use your sources to address questions that are significant to you and relevant to the task at hand.
Move from a Historical Interest toaResearchTopic
There is so much history to write about, and so little time for ~ting. Ifyou are going to get your assignment done in a reasonable tune and space (ideally by the due date and within the page limit), you need to convert your historical interests into a feasible research topic p . . . · ocus your research early. Fmd a small story withm your broad f . range o interests, and select only the best sources to support your interpretation.
Imagine that your instructor has asked you to write a research essay. You can eith t . c er s art with a broad scope and then narrow your iocus until you h . . ave a topic that is the right size for the assignment or you . sing! ' can start with one specific question or a e source and then d material t expan your focus until you have enough If o complete your investigation
you decide to begin "th · survey the t t f wi a broad scope, you will need to s a e o the field Th I · e nternet makes possible a quick
search on a search engine like Google, followed by a Jirik to Wikipedia. This may seem like a good beginning to many people, but to historians this is merely a preliminary glance at what lies on the surface. Good writing starts with extensive and methodical reading: the more books, articles, and primarysources we read, the more authoritatively we may write. And good writing requires active reading, which involves taking notes, tracking down references, and observing contradictions between authors. These contradictions are especially important Two historians writing about the same topic rarely come to the same interpretation. Why are their views conflicting? An investigation of this question can lead you to a better understanding of what we know about the past, and to a research topic that will work for your assignment. Did the historians consider different evidence? Do they have opposing political commitments? Is there a way for you to test their arguments on another set of data and come to a conclusion of your own? Maybe all historians writing about a topic agree about some things, but your personal knowledge of the subject causes you to doubt their findings. Can you support your conflicting view with evidence?
If you already have a specific question or single source in mind, you can begin from here, but you will still need sources to provide background and support. What evidence must be considered when answering your question? What context is necessary to understand the source? Are there any theoretical approaches that will shed light on your investigation?
Whether you choose to work inward from a breadth of possibilities, or outward from a precise problem, the early stages of your research process will involve the selection of reliable sources.
WorkwithBibliographies
Many students begin their research by searching the Internet, yet there is so much out there, and it can be difficult to determine which sources are reliable. It is often better to start with bibliographies, lists of readings that scholars assemble for fellow researchers.
th t Ou have been fascinated by bison ever since Let us say a Y . d . ·t t Wood Buffalo National Park. Let us also say a ch1ldhoo VlSl o • ·t·zens you are concerned about cross-cultural that like many c1 1 , 1 '· d th environment You have read Alfred W. Crosby's re ations an e · , The Columbian Exchange and Theodore Binnemas Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains,1 and you now share their interest in relations between settlers and Indigenous peoples. You recognize that it took these historians many years of research and hundreds of pages ofwriting to cover their topics, and therefore you know that you will need to find something smaller in scale for your project. Neither book has much to say about bison or people in Western Canada. Their bibliographies contain some sources that will be useful for context or comparison, but they focus on different regions from your topic and, even in the most recent editions, do not include anything written more recently than the early 2000s. How can you find a bibliography that will lead you to current scholarship on the environmental history of the plains in Western Canada?
Ask a librarian. Librarians will probably not have a lot of narrowly specialized knowledge on your topic, but they will know how to find a good bibliography. A keyword search that combines "environmental history" with the words "bibliography:' "companion;' and "handbook" returns a number of promising sources, among them a book called The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History. 2 Go find the book in the library or online. It turns out to be rather thick, but a quick glance at the table of contents points to one chapter, called "Seas of Grass: Grasslands in World Environmental History;' written by Andrew Isenberg, that looks especially promising. When you read it, you find that the essay compares the environmental history of grasslands in different parts of th ld, · th e wor mcluding the Eurasian Steppes, e Pampas ofSouth America, and the North American Great Plains. Its bibliography will lead you to additional sources. It would be perfe tl . king c Y appropriate for you to start trac down those sources d ki an s rnming them in order to narrow
your topic even further. It may also be more practical-and more enjoyable-simply to ask your professor for suggestions. Chances are your professor will be happy to discuss a research topic, especially ifyou have a working bibliography and are developing specific ideas about your interests. Professors will be familiar with key works by other scholars and will be able to suggest books that provide helpful overviews and contain useful bibliographies. In the case of the environmental history of the plains in Canada, the first book many professors will recommend is James Daschuk's Gearing the Plains: Disease, Politics ofStarvation, and the Loss ofAboriginal Life.3
As you begin to read Daschuk's book, you notice that it is comprehensive and accessible, much like Crosby's and Binnema's books, and also that it interweaves environmental history with political and social history. A careful review of the text and references even reveals that Daschuk cites both Crosby's and Binnema's books as important predecessors. Read Daschuk's book with an eye to narrowing your topic. What specific issues capture your attention? What passages do you find inspiring? In his chapter "Canada, the Northwest, and the Treaty Period, 1869-76;' Daschuk writes about positions taken by the Cree in negotiating Treaty 6. Your interest is piqued by his assertion that "to the bulk of the Cree leadership, the successful negotiation of a treaty represented their best hope for survival in the new economic order on the plains:• In the paragraph immediately preceding this statement, you find evidence that Cree leaders were well aware of profound economic changes sweeping over the plains and their need to respond:
The possibility of bloodshed was real, but most of the Cree who attended the treaty talks recognized the futility of armed resistance to dominion authority. Mistawassis stressed this point to Poundmaker and The Badger, two opponents of the treaty: "We are few in numbers compared to former times, by wars and the terrible ravages of smallpox.... Even if it were possible to gather all the tribes together, to throw away the hand that is offered to help us, we would be too weak to make
our demands heard'.' ChiefAhtahkakoop echoed the sentiments of Mistawassis: "We are weak and my brother Mista-wa-sis I think is right that the buffalo will be gone before many snows. What then will be left us with which to bargain?"4
In this section, Daschuk cites several modem works about the Treaty 6 negotiations as well as an original source from the nineteenth century, Peter Erasmus's Buffalo Days and Nights. Erasmus worked as a translator for the Plains Cree during the Treaty 6 negotiations, so his book seems promising, given your interests. The next step is to search for Erasmus's book, as well as other books, by following the clues in Daschuk's bibliography and footnotes and then looking up these works in the library's online catalogue.
Spend Time in an Academic Library
Perhaps the best place to find additional sources is in your own academic institution's library, where you will find a wealth of materials. Since an academic library is designed for student and faculty research, the resources that are available to you will almost certainly be more extensive than those in a public library. You are likely to find many excellent sources including both general and specialized reference works online and perhaps in hard copy, books on the shelves (usually called "the stacks"), e-books, journal articles, films, and so on.
Speak with a Librarian
Since library holdi h . . ngs c ange constantly, it's a good idea to talk with a librarian-a research . 1· b h spec1a 1st- efore you begin to searc the catalogue Lib · · rarians are the unsung heroes of the historical world and historians d d h . 1 . epen eaVIly on them, because they not on y preserve ~nformation but also know how it is or anized and how to access 1t. They c b g tud . fi . an e an enormous help to historians and s ents m nding what th . t h . . ey need This is particularly important 0 emp asize m today's world, when electronic information is
increasing exponentially and ways to access it are changing constantly. Reference librarians are experts in electronic searches, and most will be happy to show you how to begin. You will save yourself a lot of time and maximize the likelihood of finding good sources by consulting a librarian at the outset of your project.
Explore the Library Catalogue
The key to searching a catalogue is understanding how the i nformation is organized. Not all libraries arrange their materials the same way, but most items in the library are listed by author, title, and subject heading.
1. FindBooksbySubjectHeading. To find the right headings, start with a keyword search. In a keyword search, it is important to use distinctive words. Type in environmental history and you will get too many entries. A more specific search, like Canadian environmental history, will still produce too many. But if you find one book from among the many entries that fits with your topic and click the subject headings associated with that entry, you will be taken to other works on the same subject. Note that subject searches differ from keyword searches. Keyword searches may turn up your word or words in widely varying order. By contrast, subject headings are fixed by the Library of Congress, and you will get a hit on a subject heading only if you click on or type in its exact wording. (All librarians will be able to explain to you how to search for Library of Congress subject headings.) For example, the subject headings for Peter Erasmus reveal a number of useful possibilities, including "Indians of North America- Canada, Western-History:' A click on that link offers more books about the subject. These books, in tum, can be looked up simply by clicking them. If your own library does not own the book, ask a librarian about how to order the item through Interlibrary Loan.
2.SearchJournals in OnlineDatabases. Articles and reviews from scholarly journals can often provide helpful guideposts to
a field. Many libraries now subscribe to databases that allow users to search online indexes, such as Academic Search Premier offered by EBSCOhost, JSTOR, and Project MUSE. Sometimes these services grant users access to full-text versions of articles. When articles are not available through the databases, the system provides citations that allow users to find hard-copy versions of the articles or to order them through interlibrary loan. Full-text versions of journal articles are available through many databases, which together provide subscribing libraries with access to recent issues and back issues of hundreds of journals.
3. ExploreOtherOnlineResources. Colleges and universities buy access to controlled websites, library portals, and databases so that you can use them for research. Some of the most commonly used are listed in Appendix C, "Suggested Resources for Research and Writing in History:'
One particularly useful site, available by personal or institutional subscription, is Oxford Bibliographies Online (http://www. oxfordbibliographies.com). Search this site within categories such as African American Studies, African Studies, Childhood Studies, Chinese Studies, Classics, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies, Medieval Studies, Military History, and Renaissance and Reformation. There is no separate category for Canadian history, but depending on your topic you can find many references to Canadian history within the other categories.
F~r a project on cross-cultural relations and colonial North Amencan enviro al h"
1 b ll d .. nment 1story, for example, click the box
a e e :Atlantic H' st " (Atl hi t 1 ory. antic History usually refers to the s ory of African Am · the late fift th ' encan, and European interactions from Caribb een century, when Columbus sailed from Spain to the ean, to the late ninet th the Americas As . een century, when slavery ended in Bibliographie.s ' t you will see from this subject area in the Oxford , i can extend . qlllte far beyond the Atlantic coasts.)
Figure 1.1
Clicking "Atlantic History" opens a table of contents. Each title represents a specialized area of Atlantic History.
Browse down and click "Environment and the Natural World." This opens a short essay by an expert scholar, Susan Scott Parrish, about Atlantic environmental history. Her essay will guide you through the next stages of research. For ease of reference, on the left a table of contents allows readers to navigate back and forth through different sections. The essay itself also contains links to sources and related essays. Other essays in the "Atlantic History" series that might prove useful to your project include "Native American Histories in North America;• "Continental America;• and "Hinterlands of the Atlantic World."
4.SearchHistoricalWebsites. Today there are thousands of excellent Internet sites for scholars interested in history. Archives have placed documents and images online, as have newspapers
and institutions. Many scholars have assembled websites that are informative and interactive. For this project, you might find these examples particularly useful:
• Canadiana Online, http://online.canadiana.ca, provides searchable databases with access to digitized collections of books, newspapers, periodicals, images, and archival materials.
• http://www.virtualmuseum.ca, Canada's Virtual Museum site, provides links to several thousand museums and heritage organizations.
• One of the most extensive lists can be found at the Library of Congress "Virtual Reference Shelf,' http:// www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/virtualref.html.
Sites like these-and many more-are making it possible for scholars to study subjects that once required expensive research trips to distant locations.
Use Reference Sources for Background Information
Fundamental reference works, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and textbooks, survey a broad range of interests and topics.
1. Encyclopedias. A good encyclopedia can help you get an e~ly, broad understanding of a topic. It will contain basic explanations as well as hints about related subjects. Just keep in mind that encyclopedias can provide only an introduction: a paper that relies hea ·1 . your VI Yon encyclopedia articles will not ll1lpress readers.
. If you decide to use encyclopedias, consult those that are written and edited by specialists in the field and aimed at an academicread h' Th K ame A th ers 1P• e Encyclopedia ofAfrica, edited by w n ony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and published by
Oxford University Press, for example, would be a reliable place to find some basic information on an African history topic, while the Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture is an authoritative reference work for the field of Islamic art.
2.Dictionaries. Dictionaries are also a quick way to explore some topics. Be aware that there are different types of dictionary, each with its own special uses. Prescriptive dictionaries like Websters tell you how words should be used; descriptive dictionaries like American Heritage tell you how words are actually used; and historical dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED) tell you how words have been used over time. 1he OED can be a valuable resource if you are reading primary sources in English and basing your argument or interpretation on specific words or phrases. Consider, for example, that "meat" once meant any solid food, "nice" was used to describe a foolish person, and an "apology" was a defence or vindication against accusation or aspersion. Other specialized dictionaries commonly held in library reference collections may prove useful too. Some, such as A Dictionary of Environmental History and the Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt would be good dictionaries to help you understand those fields better. Biographical dictionaries can help you better understand the lives of individual people. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography provides information about signi~cant figures from Canada's past, and the Dictionary of National Biography provides information about people who lived in the British Isles.
. h' t tbooks are available 3. Textbooks. Increasmgly, 1story ex . d · n will do mcely m online, although a traditional boun versio . . f I surveys of a topic, and this case. Textbooks often contam use u 1h ally not very focused, they also offer bibliographies. ey are usu . d R h th n all r reVIewe . at er a however, nor are they gener Y pee - h' , further h • b'bliograp 1es 1or relying on them directly, check t eir 1 references.
ConductaGeneralSearchontheInternet
Most scholars with access to a computer will supplement a research project by using a high-quality search engine such as Google (http://www.google.com). Enter your keywords in the search box and Google "looks" for them on the Internet. Google then takes cached copies or "snapshots" of each relevant page and reports them back to you, in order of their relevance. Note that Google determines relevance by weighing factors that may not be relevant to historical research, such as the number of links to a site, and that Google search results now vary from person to person, depending on one's previous searches.
Search by choosing distinctive keywords. In some cases, you might want to cast a wide net and search for a general term. In other cases, you might want to search for specific names and titles. Ifyou were writing an essay on the military history of medieval Europe, for example, you might enter the phrase "Knights Templar" in the search box. Google unearths quite a few websites that appear to be helpful, but you should proceed with caution before deciding to use them in your research.
Scan the Search Results
How do scholars know which websites are most promising? The hits may be evaluated by asking what sort of institution publishes the website. The author should represent a reputable institution that is interested in the dissemination of objective information. The institution's administration should support the Internet site and oversee its content. If that is not the case, and the website is published to entertain, make money, or spread disinformation, it must be approached more warily. One quick way to learn about an institution publishing a website is to examine the domain name, particularly the abbreviation that occurs after the institution's name. In the United States, websites that contain .edu, .ac, and .gov ~er~ cr~ated by people affiliated with academic and government mstitutions Th · · ·t f on's · ese sites may or may not represent the mstl u 1
official positions, but, at the very least, the authors of the sites h ad to be accepted or hired by the institution. It shou ld be noted that it is very easy to obtain a domain name ending in org, net c . . , . om, and .co; anybody with a credit card may do so. These websites tend to be either commercial or personal, which means history students must treat them with great skepticism.
Get a Quick First Impression
The first click on a Google search result will reveal much about the reliability of the site. Here are some criteria to help you arrive at a quick critical assessment of sites in our search for Knights Templar on Google.
1. WhoIstheAuthor? The more you know about the author, the more likely it is that he or she is willing to stake a reputation on the contents. When an author is identified, do a follow-up search on the name in order to verify credentials and affiliations. Is the author a recognized authority on the subject of the Internet site? If not, you should not give the content much weight.
2.HastheWebsiteAlsoBeenPublished in Print? Many sites began as print sources or are published in both print and electronic editions. In these cases the quality is likely to be higher because printed information tends to have higher costs and therefore higher quality controls. Typically, it takes a great deal of time and effort to publish a printed book or journal article. Academic works ofhistory that are published in these ways usually must meet with the approval of editors and peerreviewers before they are printed and distributed For this reason, many students have gotten into the habit of trusting printed sources. By contrast, publishing on the Internet can be done cheaply and quickly, often with no controls for quality. There are virtually no barriers to publishing one's own website.
3,What Is theToneoftheWebsite? To some degree, objectivity may be determined by the website's tone. Many websites are
written to entertain viewers or to advocate a particular point of view. Other websites are more objective but written with a different audience in mind, say, readers who are young, or who are aficionados and hobbyists. Assessing the tone of a website can be an important component of a preliminary evaluation.
4.DoestheWebsiteFeatureReferences? In historical scholarship, it is important for others to be able to follow in an author's footsteps. This allows us to confirm or contradict an author's findings. If there are no references, it is difficult to verify the information. It may not be reliable and therefore should not be used in a historical essay.
Critically Assess Sources on the Internet
Let us now assess some of the websites that our Google search uncovered for the Knights Templar. Some of these sources are promising, but others are not.
1. "Knights Templar;' from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia is now being used as a first point of reference by many history students because the first page of Google search results often references Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is an Internet encyclopedia whose articles are written by thousands of volunteer contributors. Contributors may help to revise, update, and edit articles to ensure quality, but there is no board of editors to verify accuracy. Be~ause Wikipedia contains mistakes that may or may not be quickly fixed, some history instructors prohibit their students from citing it as a sour · th · ·
h ce m err assignments. Other instructors ave taken an oppos't h . ·b 1 e approac , encouraging their students to contnute to Wikip d" th . . e ia so at they will make it better. Still, it is best not to cite Wikipedi • & e li 'tl a m a iormal writing assignment unless you are xp cidi '( told that you may. Reading a Wikipedia article, like reading a tra bona} encycl di . . t b ope a article, affords a superficial orientation o a su Ject Good r case of th w·iki' esearch requires more of the researcher. In the e pedia ti 1 · ar c e about the Knights Templar, it contains
descriptions of basic aspects of the medieval orde d ·t 1 . . . r an 1 s egacy, including appearances m modern popular culture, plus links to further electronic resources. This information may help you direct your research, but if you verify each source in the "references" section in~epen~entl~, you will note that only some are scholarly. Overall, this Wikipedia page can serve to provide some basic background information, and it can lead you to some interesting possible research directions, but it should not be used directly without first being checked against reliable, scholarly sources.
2. Knights Templar - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com. This is a page from the website of the History television network. It provides slick trailers from their television series on the Templars and a short description of the group's history. It is a commercial site, complete with advertisements for the television series and other products, and not signed by an author. Its named sources are newspapers, magazines, and other commercial websites-not research by scholars. The information on this site may be entertaining, but it is not appropriate for research at the university level.
3. "10 Incredible Things You Should Know About the Templars" from Realm of History. One of the first things you should notice about this site is all the ads that pop up. Right away, this should lead you to suspect that the main purpose ofthe site is not to educate, but to entertain and possibly generate income for the site's owner. There is an author listed, or at least a name provided after the phrase "posted by;' but if you do a quick search on the Internet for this person, you will see that he is the founder of the site and describes himself as an "amateur historian:' No sources are provided. This is not a good site for university-level historical research. You should ignore it and move on to more academic sources.
4. "The Knights Templar Burned in the Presence of Philip the Fair and His Courtiers:' A general search on Google will turn up images related to the group. For a search dedicated completely to imagery, click on "Images" in the top left corner of the Google
screen. You will be provided with many images of the Knights Templar, medieval as well as modern. The former may be worth analyzing for the purposes of the research paper. Browse the images, but take the same critical approach as with anything else on the Internet. Rely on reputable websites affiliated with recognizable, professional institutions, such as universities, libraries, museums, and art galleries. This particular link turns out to be a page from the J. Paul Getty Museum, a respected art museum in California. It presents an image from an early-fifteenth-century manuscript, and informs its readers that the image is downloadable, but it does not offer much description of the subject. You may choose to use this image as a primary source for your research, and you may also want to search for good secondary sources to help you interpret it responsibly.
ApproachYourTopicfromaParticularAngle
A library at a large university will contain thousands of items that pertain to many topics, and it may also have special collections of manuscripts and artifacts. Even a small library will have several dozen items for some research topics. Don't be discouraged; you simply need to bring more focus to your topic.
Think back to the books you have read and the courses you ha:7e taken. If you like to read biographies, then you might want to identify individuals who made a significant contribution to the field. lfyou like to d • 1h" . rea socia istory, you might wish to explore a topic along the li f l . nes O c ass, gender, or race. You might be partial to the history of a t" 1 1 . th . par icu ar P ace or time period. Keep working m e library and on th I . bl e nternet until it seems you have a managea e number of resou .th . reasonably c d . rces Wl which to write an essay on a 1ocuse topic.
Browse for More Sources
There is only one way to make an . go back to the Int informed choice about a topic: ernet and to th . e hbrary stacks, and browse
through the potential source materials Look for both quantity and quality. Are there enough sources to write this paper, or are there so many sources that the topic must be narrowed fu r ther?
It is also important to consider when your sources were published. Are you finding the most recent scholarship, or do your sources seem old enough to be out of date?
It is probably a good idea to start with a narrow b ase of sources and build it into a broader base. As you search for sources in the library stacks, you will find more clues that will lead you to further sources. Just keep in mind that there are limits to your time, and there are limits to your paper. In the early stages of research, you do not need to find everything.
FormaHypothesis
An essay based on historical research should reach new conclusions about a topic. This is a challenging proposition, and by now you may be wondering if it is worth writing a paper about your first topic of the environmental history of the Canadian plains at all. Daschuk and his fellow scholars have already written plenty about the subject. Can you bring a unique perspective to bear on the topic?
While you are identifying a topic, you should begin forming a hypothesis, one of the most important steps in writing a research paper. A hypothesis is not an ordinary guess; it is the proposition that can guide you through the research. As you read your sources you will have questions about your topic, and as you get answers you will refine your hypothesis. Over the course of your research, you will find that you are getting closer to forming an argument.
How does one arrive at a hypothesis? Start to jot down some questions. In the case of your research focusing on the negotiations for Treaty 6, you may be wondering about several things: (1) What sort of person was Peter Erasmus? (2) What was stipulated in Treaty 6? (3) Were the Treaty 6 negotiations fair or unfair? (4) What was the most significant point of disagreement in the Treaty 6 negotiations?
Now ask yourselftwo more things: Can you build an argument around the potential answer to one of the questions, and does the question address some broader issue in history? Questions 1 and 2 might yield only descriptions and not arguments. Question 3 could produce a debate (yes, they were fair; no, they were unfair), but such a debate would not occur today among historians unless they took great care to define what was is meant by the ideas of "fair" and "unfair" in a historical context. Question 4 seems a bit more promising. It could help you ask questions about the social dimensions of the law, a common approach for a historian.
CraftaProposal
After you have completed your preliminary research, craft a onepage proposal. Your instructors and friends may be happy to read it and comment on it, but even if they are not, the process of writing the proposal will still help you sketch out your ideas. The proposal is an early opportunity to think critically about your topic. The proposal should answer these questions:
1. What is your topic? Describe it briefly.
2. What is your hypothesis? Articulate the question that is driving your research, and what your tentative answer to this question is.
3. What will your readers learn from this project? Explain what new information your research will be bringing to light, or how you will be interpreting commonplace knowledge in a new way.
5.
4 · Why is your project significant or interesting? Discuss the relationsh· b tw 1P e een your proJect and some broader issue in history. What sources will b . . you e usmg? Provide a list of books, articles, images d h . , an ot er sources that will provide evidence.
6. What methods will Tell wh h . you use to evaluate your sources? at t eorehcal approaches you will be taking to
interpret your sources, or how you will be using methods from another discipline, such as sociology or anthropology, to inform your interpretation.
WriteanAnnotatedBibliography
Your objective for the next stage of your project should be to compile an annotatedbibliography. This exercise will help you assess the breadth and significance of your sources. Arrange your sources according to the instructions for a bibliography given in Appendix B, "Citation Guide." After each entry in your bibliography, summarize the source and state why you will be using it in your paper. (For good examples of annotated bibliographies, see Oxford Bibliographies Online.) You should keep your notes on sources concise, but you may wish to say more about some sources than others; about 150 words will normally do for each entry. The summaries should address the following questions:
l. What type of source is it: a book, a journal article, a historical document?
2. What is the main argument or contribution of the source?
3. What evidence is presented by the source?
4. How is the source relevant to your research project?
TalktoPeopleaboutYourTopic
Don't be bashful. It can be intimidating to seek out experts in your area of interest, but experts are usually happy to discuss specific research problems with other researchers, especially when they are presented with thoughtful questions and written proposals. If the experts happen to be history professors at your institution, visit them during their office hours, or make appointments to see them. You may also wish to seek out experts in other departments of a university, and outside of universities, too.
IfYou Have to Abandon a Topic, Do It Early
Toe process of finding sources, forming a hypothesis, and crafting a proposal will test the viability ofyour topic. Ifat the end of a week or two you no longer want to work on your topic, then choose another one. There are plenty of reasons to stop working on a topic: you may not find enough sources, or you may decide that the topic is less interesting than you thought. It is better to bail out of an unfeasible project early than to go down in flames later.
Review
1. Find a topic that interests you .
2 Visit your library.
3 Read b ibliographies and foo tnotes to find more sources.
4 . Make sure your sources are appropriate
5. Read to develop a hypothesis and c raft a proposal.
Notes
I. Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Co lumbian 2. Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition (Westport: Praeger, 2003); Theodore Binnema, Common and 3_ Con tested Ground: A Human and Environ mental History of the Northwestern Plains (Norman: University
Andrew C. Isenberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Hi story (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
James W. Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the loss of Aboriginal Life (Regina: of Oklahoma Press, 200 I). University of Regina Press, 2013).
4. Daschuk, Clearing the Plains, 97- 98.
C hoose a Topic -Assigned
- Based on interests
U se Research T ools -Bibliographies
-Librarians
-Professors
Write an Annotated Bi bliography
Find Resea r ch Sources
-Academic reference sources
-Library cata logue
-Online databases
-The Internet
Construct an A rgument
-Approach your top ic from a particular ang le
-Form a hypothesis
-Check t hat the hypothesis is supportable and meaningful
Craft a Proposal
Evaluate Progress
Flowchart Chapter 1 Constructin g an argu m ent based on sou rces
