If you don't know what you're doing, it can feel like you're looking for a needle in a haystack. Including documentation (or 'metadata') will allow you to add context to your data so that you and others can understand it in Although we've constructed this site especially for environmental historians, and have generally provided environmental examples, we've tried to make it as helpful as possible for anyone seeking to learn the craft of doing historical research. Landscapes exist in the present, but they also contain countless remnants of the pasts that have given them their present form. Being organized helps you to better collate sources, compare them, evaluate them, identify discrepancies, and make reasonable conclusions. I am a recovering “organizing junkie”. Here are some more ideas on how to organize your genealogy research materials: Org4life Family History Research Services – I can help you do it, teach you to do it, or do it for you. The list of questions like these is literally infinite. Don't ever forget this. Ferrarotti, F. (1997). It's billed as writing software rather than organizing software, but it has helped me organize my project in a way that I can actually progress. The relation between history and sociology: synthesis or conflict? Historical research uncovered this story based on primary historical data – in this case, records from the members of the expedition, as well as documents and letters from the Spanish archives. This organization method involves three main steps: This may sound like a time-consuming process, but you will soon find that organizing your research is time well spent! Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22(2):174-197. There's no one way to interpret or understand landscapes. Success! are influenced by the person writing them), Historical research is a complex and broad category because the topics of research (e.g. But precisely because periodicals like these are such an astonishingly rich source, it can be really confusing trying to find information in them. We offer an overview of the endless fascinations of periodical sources here. http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zcomphistnotes.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_comparative_research, https://clinfowiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Historical_research&oldid=13927, The research is not involved in the situation that is studied, The researchers do not interact with the subjects of study, Analysis of historical data may help explain current and future events, Historical data is incomplete and vulnerable to time (documents can be destroyed by wars or over time), It can also be biased and corrupt (e.g. As you write your paper you should insert the letter/number code each time you use or refer to a piece of research—instead of putting citations in as you write. Failure was sure to follow. Interested in how much milk, cheese, and butter Wisconsin dairy farmers produced last year? Viewing historical photographs is just plain fun. Because they are designed to depict places in simplified or thematic ways, they are especially powerful tools for doing environmental history. Welcome! A social historian will see quite different things in it than an economic historian will—to say nothing of what a geologist or ecologist will see. Final Thoughts on Organizing Research notes: You should always question whether it’s worth adding another task to your workflow (such as digitising your notes). Google and other search engines are the most powerful tools for finding information that humanity has ever created. Look at all the pages—the headlines, the editorials, the sports pages, the business news, the advertisements—and ask how much the world had changed in the years between those two documents. Not photographs or other images. Unlike science, where one can set up a laboratory experiment or perform field investigations that describe the world as it exists right now, the past survives only as fragments that remain from a time that is no more. We can't find out anything about the past without documents—the fragments that have survived from that past world that no longer exists. Historical research data is subject to external criticism (verification of genuineness or validity of the source) and internal criticism (exploring the meaning of the source). Graph of Wisconsin River Discharge Rates at Muscoda. It won’t be long before you realize that some of your papers (or note cards) contain information that could fit into one, two, or three different places. Please try again. Far from it. I have a historical research project I'm working on that spans over 50 years. Asking "How did Americans respond to flu epidemics in the past?" It's harder than it looks to ask good research questions. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 34(1):1-16. The main value of organized research logs is to show all the sources … They use the phrase "secondary sources" to refer to the writings of scholars and other people who have used primary documents to interpret the past. To learn more about the craft of asking good research questions, click here. William Cronon But you shouldn't shy away from it either. Paper and pencil versions and digital versions work just as well.
