How to study history.pdf

7/23/2019 How to study history.pdf

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Introduction:As a student of History , I’ve come across a number of problems. I didn’t know

who to turn to for the answers of them. Because all of the professors will tell you

everything you need to know about History. But they will not tell you the methods to

study History and score good grades. History has so much information: facts, dates,

names and events. How is one person supposed to memorize so much stuff? Or

are we even supposed to learn so much useless information?After extensive research I cracked the code of the History exam and in every college

exam I’ve gotten A+ in History employing theses techniques and I hope that you do

too.

This book is a must have for every college student. I hope you enjoy this book as

much as I enjoyed writing it. And the History Monster never bothers you again

I wrote this book for friends they scored awesome grades and asked me to launch

this book. But I decided to give it away to you my lovely and loyal blog readers.

What you will get from this book:

· Introduction to History

· Tips to study History

· Tips to write History Essays

· Note-taking methods

· Exam taking tips

1.1 The Proper Attitude

In History as in life in general, your attitude is everything. In other words, to make your experience with

History as enjoyable and worthwhile as possible requires the proper attitude. You have to be able to

place yourself in the right frame of mind and that frame of mind is one in which exploration, discovery and



self-awareness are integral.

History has always gotten a bad rap in part because what students remember of their experience in history

classes is that sort of mindless memorization of facts: dates, events, wars--what I routinely refer to as "the

history of kings and queens." This sort of history has its place, I suppose. It does qualify as History, but of

a most basic sort. A case in point: go to your local bookstore, go to several in fact, and take a look at

what they have on the shelves under history. Unless you are at one of the larger stores like Borders,

Barnes & Noble, or at a university bookstore, I'm willing to bet that most of what falls under History is

really little more than war. We have a fascination for war--I don't know why. But, the fact remains, thatfor most people, the study of history means little else than the study of war.

This confuses me! All these facts. All this stuff of history crowding my mind. A number of surveys over the

years have pointed to the disturbing fact that Americans don't know history. They don't know their own

history. Here is a typical question from one of those surveys: Did the Civil War take place before, or after

1850? Hopefully, you did not need to find your textbook for the answer to that one. But there is a deeper

issue here. To know, to have the knowledge, to have committed to memory the simple fact that the Civil

War took place after 1850 is, to me relatively unimportant. After all, anyone can learn to memorize, well,

anything. Is this history? What have you learned? What I would like to suggest is that you learned a fact--

you have obtained knowledge. But, far more important to me is wisdom. Does the knowledge that the

Civil War took place after 1850 give you wisdom? does it make you wiser? Or, are facts and wisdom

gained through knowledge two distinct entities?

Some people like to read about war. For these people, it is war that "makes history come alive" (as if it

needed any prodding in the first place). Military history is fascinating but, in my opinion, only meaningful

(historically) when put into the context of the "other" history that is occurring at the same time. What is that

"other" history? Simple. It's the history which explains why that war took place in terms of the economy,

culture, diplomacy and perhaps a hundred other variables. In general, most Americans would rather be

"entertained" by passively watching a film about war rather than listen to someone talk about the origins

and consequences of that war.

So, this much said, what sort of attitude do we need to have when studying history? Well, the first thing is

that you should not enter a history class--any history class--looking for answers. The study of history

reveals that there is no clear cut answer for anything. Since understanding history is based on individual--

and therefore subjective--interpretation, you must decide for yourself what kind of meaning you will attach

to the topic. Go into history with an open mind. Don't expect the answer to be presented to you as if

written in stone. It's not. History is not a science--it's a form of literature and the historian is little more

than a writer of non-fiction.

A number of years ago I was teaching the second part of a western civilization course at a community

college. We had just spent four or five lectures running through the French Revolution. The students had

heard lectures on the origins of the Revolution, the moderate stage, the radical stage, Robespierre andfinally Napoleon. Now it came time to review. Twenty of us sat in a circle and set out to "discuss" the

meaning and significance of the French Revolution. Was it successful? was it a failure? did the Revolution

come as a result of the Age of Enlightenment? was it a bourgeois revolution? I began the discussion by

reviewing the "great days" of the Revolution, events like the Oath of the Tennis Court or the Flight to

Varennes and people like Robespierre and so on. So, we eventually got to the point where we were

discussing interpretation. Some students spoke up and said the Revolution was a success, others said it

was a failure. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes until one student raised her hand and said, plain as

day, "Well, which is it? Was it a success or a failure?" She sat in her chair, her pen poised to write...the

answer! All I could say was, "Well, what do you think?" I immediately saw a brick wall. She didn't get it.



Some of us don't. We build brick walls as a short cut to thinking. "There must be an answer. What is it? I

don't want to think. I want to know." So much for wisdom.

You can avoid this trap. It's not that hard. You have to open your eyes, open your mind. Tear down the

walls. Study history with a sense of wonder and enjoyment. After all, this "stuff"' is all happening in the

past. Study history with a sense of engagement. There ought to be a sense of "what was it like" when you

study history. Really good professors will instill this sense of wonder, that is, if they are worth anything at

all. More about this later.

I've seen a great many students come and go in my own classes in Western Civilization and European

History. And one thing that will help them embrace the proper attitude is that they all get a sense of

historical time. Yes, this does mean that you understand what came before this or after that. You must get

into the habit, difficult as it might at first seem, of putting things into historical and chronological

perspective. You must make yourself aware of historical time. Look at the big picture (Europe 1100-

1650) even while you are studying the small one (the Renaissance) or the even smaller one (Florentine

diplomacy). You must be able to eventually "image" a timeline in your head so that when your professor

rambles on about Dante, Rabelais, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Cervantes, you'll have an approximate

idea of how his discussion might all be tied together. I think that once you get in this habit, your

appreciation for history, in a word, your attitude, will begin to show signs of improvement as well.

Another important attribute which may assist in creating the proper attitude is television and film. I mean

this seriously. How else can you actually understand a lecture on say, the Black Death of 1347-1351,

unless you have some real images in your head? Your textbook will contain the obligatory photographs, of

course. And this will help. So too will an instructor who can really instill the terror, uncertainty and anguish

of the people at that time. But, I have always found that my memories of watching Ingmar Bergman's film,

"The Seventh Seal", has always helped me visualize mid-fourteenth century Europe. Think of all the films

you might have seen. Go ahead, do it right now.....do any of them provide you with images of history

past? Where else do our images of the past come from?

For instance, up to a certain point in time, my image of World War Two was fashioned by watching

Hollywood films, you know, John Wayne, Dana Andrews, Gregory Peck and so on. Americans charging

up hills toward victory. The hero, shot in the final scene, asks for a smoke with his dying breath. Blatant or

subtle propaganda? You decide. The point is that I grew up with a sort of idealized--mythical--version of

war that just does not stand up to the historical record. However, the images remain. "Image" as much as

possible.

Here's an example before we pass on to the next section. In my introductory lecture on the Scientific

Revolution I ask my students to "image" a scientist. Go ahead. Do the same thing right now. What does a

scientist look like? How is the scientist dressed? What does his office look like? Is the scientist a man or a

woman? Okay, what did you "image"? I'm almost certain I know what you are seeing because that image

of the scientist---wild hair, disorganized, absent-minded, dedicated to truth, unemotional---are all imageswe've silently digested from Hollywood.

Can you successfully complete a course in history without having the proper attitude? Of course you can.

But why take the short cut? Why not make the effort. Rather than go through the motions, make history

part of your life. After all, that's exactly what history is--it is your life.

1.2 Why Study History?

Let's face it, our first experience with History is that it is a course that we have to take in order to



graduate. As a junior and senior high school student we are confronted with American history, state

history and perhaps even a general course in western civilization or world history. We didn't have a

choice. And the fact that we are forced to take history puts us on the defensive. We begin to build

that grandiose brick wall that will prevent us from getting anything important out of history.

The main problem as I see it, is not history itself. The study of history can be fun. But there's only

one thing that can make our first experience with history a miserable thing indeed: and that's a poor

instructor. I was fortunate. I managed to have a number of excellent history instructors throughout

my high school years and this was at a time when I was leaning toward the physical sciences,

geology and biology to be exact. I might not have been an excellent history student, but I do

remember having excellent history teachers.

Fine. That's my experience. But experience aside, why study history in the first place? What could

history offer the business major? the student intending to study web page development? the student

taking her first psychology class? or pre-med student? or the lawyer? or the worker on the shop

floor? Well, simply stated, everything has a history, whether we like it or not. Even history itself has

a history. Try hard as we might, we can't escape the past. We can't let go of the past. And we

celebrate the past all the time.

You may have been told that we study history so that we won't repeat the mistakes of the past. This

is the wishful thinking school of historical interpretation. It's too clean. If we have learned from the

past then over the centuries we ought to have accumulated so much knowledge that things like war,

poverty, injustice and immorality ought not to exist. Of course, we've still got a long way to go in

this respect.

You may also have heard that everything repeats itself, so if we study the past, we can be sure to

know something of the future. I don't hold to this view either. To insist that the study of the past

will reveal something of the future is a nice idea, but what I really want to know about is the

present. History cannot "tell" the future. History can, on the other hand, reveal all that is the presentSo, faced as we are with the question "why study history?" I can only hope to answer by telling you

why I study history.

Well first off, by studying history you can study anything for the simple reason that everything has a

history: ideas, wars, numbers, races, windsurfing, coal miners, pencils, motherhood and yes, even

toilet-training. I first began to appreciate the study of history as an undergraduate studying political

philosophy at Boston University. I was pretty keen on Plato, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Locke,

Godwin, Marx, Mill and a host of other "greats." But what I soon discovered was that my lack of

understanding of history, i.e. the actual historical context in which these writers conceived and

executed their theoretical work, made my understanding of their philosophy one-sided. Sure, I knew

what they had to say about liberty, or the proletariat, or monarchy or the franchise. But what was

the historical environment that gave rise to their ideas? Ideas are not akin to balloons hanging from

the ceiling of Clio's den, waiting to be retrieved by a Marx, a Mill or a Plato. Ideas have a history.

They undergo a process of development. They change, are modified, are distributed or are forgotten

only to reappear years, decades or perhaps even centuries later.

Once I realized this fact it was quite natural that I turn my attention to history itself. And why not? I

could still study Marx or Mill or Plato. Only this time I could do it from the ground up, so to speak.

This sort of approach makes me better able to visualize history in a different way. It gives some



sense of "pastness" to the past.

But why do I bother? What's the point? Well, for me, it's a Socratic issue. Socrates was a man of

knowledge but not that much knowledge. As a freshman in high school you probably knew more

than Socrates. But, Socrates was a wise man. He had wisdom because he knew only one thing: that

he knew nothing. His "job," so to speak, was to question the Athenian youth. It was not enough to

know something. You had to know why you knew it. And this, of course, brought him to the

greatest question of all: what is knowledge? What can we know? Well, for Socrates, again, his

knowledge consisted in the realization that he knew nothing. This Socratic irony leaves us rather

high and dry but I think there is a greater issue at stake here.

For Socrates, perhaps the highest virtue can be summed up in the phrase, "Know thyself." In other

words, of all the things in the phenomenal world, there is not one so important as yourself. To know

yourself means to be aware of what it is that makes you who you are. And in this respect, the one

thing which reveals this knowledge is history. But people do not live alone, they live in society. And

it is in society that the individual comes into contact with other individuals, all of whom are on the

same quest, in varying degrees. So, for Socrates, knowledge of self does not hinge upon reflection

or introspection, but conversation, hence the Socratic dialogue.

The Socratic dialogue implies that instructor and student meet on an equal footing. Dialogue means

conversation between two or more people. And what is the point of Socratic dialogue?

Improvement. Self-improvement of the instructor and self-improvement of the student.

So why do I study history? or why do I teach history? Well, for me it's a form of selfishness. I wish

to improve myself. And by improving myself I also improve others. This classical pedagogical

method is called the Socratic method. If your instructor isn't at least familiar with it, then I'm afraid

your historical education is going to suffer as a result.

Can you learn history without the Socratic dialogue as your guide? Yes, it can be done. All I amtrying to suggest here is that your experience with history will be a much richer one if you keep in

mind that history means self-knowledge and as students, that should be one of the most important

things to you.

1.3 Why Write History?

To study history is to do history. And the only way we can do history is to examine the available

records from the past and then write about them. So, doing history means writing history. To learnabout the past we have two alternatives. The first is to go to the primary sources themselves. In

other words, if you wanted to learn about Galileo's astronomical and philosophical arguments for the

motion of the earth, you could do no better than read his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief

World Systems--Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632). The second alternative and the one more likely

chosen by most students at the high school or undergraduate level is to go to the secondary sources.

In this instance, we have a number of works from which to choose, for example: Giorgio de

Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (1955); Pietro Redondi, Galileo Heretic (1987); Stillman

Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography(1978).



Notice that this list of secondary sources pertain to Galileo in general and not specifically to his ideas

on the motion of the earth. The secondary sources offer a broader appreciation of the topic. They

are an example of "doing history," writing history. When students write about this secondary

literature, they are entering into the discourse of history by the simple fact that they are now adding

their own perspective.

This is fine, but why write history? After all, you plan to become a doctor, or a professor of

economics, or a cabinetmaker or a webmaster. What good does it do you to know how to write

history? Why must you do history?

1. Writing history will help you learn history. We have already discussed the importance of

becoming actively engaged in the subject of history. What better way to do so than to actually

do it? In other words, writing about history means a personal involvement with history and

this will necessarily produce a greater understanding of history, a good thing in itself!

2. Writing history will force you to understand history to a much greater degree. Listening to a

lecture, or viewing a film, or reading a monograph, or taking part in a class discussion is one

thing. But writing about this "experience" will demonstrate your general understanding of

history. As you write, you demonstrate evidence. You produce a logical argument. However,there are also times when writing allows you to express your confusion regarding a particular

idea, event or thing. Writing allows to you to bring that confusion to the surface and

hopefully, you'll be able to answer your own question. At the very least, you'll be able to

show that something needs to be more fully explored.

3. Writing history gives you the chance to render your opinion. Since the interpretation of

history is always subjective, writing allows you to persuade the reader of your argument. For

instance, many historians have interpreted the Thirty Years' War as an example of what

would later be called a world war and therefore a modern war. There are other historians who

disagree. They say that the Thirty Years' War is an example of a medieval war, or even thelast medieval war. This is where you step in. Having read a variety of interpretations, you are

now prepared to voice your own. You may agree or disagree, that much is clear. But the real

issue at stake here is that now is the chance to submit your interpretation.

4. Writing history gets you in the habit of synthesizing large quantities of material. Evidence

must be gathered and prioritized. General thesis statements must be fashioned from the

evidence at hand. You begin to learn about the general topic upon which you are writing as

well as several topics which appear on the peripheries of your topic.

5. Lastly, writing history will help you to better organize your thoughts, that goes without sayingThe historian must exhibit some kind of logic or the analysis falls apart. Studying history,

thinking history, writing history--in a word, doing history--is not easy. No, it is difficult and

requires much sustained effort. Some people are not capable of that kind of sustained effort.

Take charge of your efforts to do history. Gain as much confidence as you can. Develop your own

historical perspective. Remember, the study of history and the writing of history is not a passive

response to the historical past. No, it is much more than that. History involves the active

engagement of your life with all life. The pastness of the past is the key to the present.



2.1 How to Read a History Assignment

The study of history means reading. There's no escaping that simple fact. And reading history can

be a satisfying experience, regardless of what you might have heard. It all depends on the book you

are reading. For instance, there are quite a few books that I have read which literally transported me

in time and space. The medieval scholarship of Jacques LeGoff and George Duby fall into thiscategory. In the field of intellectual history, the works of Peter Gay, John Herman Randall, Isaiah

Berlin, H. Stuart Hughes and Frank Manuel have always impressed me. But what "works" for me

may not work for you. Most often, it's a matter of personal preference.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard students admit that they hated a certain text because it

was boring or too long or too complicated. What makes such a comment sometimes harder to

accept is that often, some of the texts instructors assign are those books which made a difference in

their own lives. Still, having been a student myself, and not a great one I might add, the reflection

that a text is boring or too long is sometimes just.

A case in point. I often assign Modris Eksteins' Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the

Modern Age in my course on Twentieth Century Europe. It's a wonderful book which juxtaposes

Stravinsky's ballet, "The Rites of Spring" with all those cultural, intellectual and psychological forces

surrounding the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. But when my students first

start reading the text, they become confused. Why? Quite simple. They expect a book about World

War One. Instead, they begin reading about a ballet. What relationship could a ballet possibly have

with a world war? Of course, they have to read further in order to grasp what Eksteins is really

trying to do. That's why I assign this text: it makes the students think differently about war, a war

they thought they all understood.

For my own courses, I try to assign books based on a number of variables such as: price and

availability, length, closeness to both the general topic and my approach to it, and complexity.

There's no sense assigning, say, E.P.Thompson's magnum opus, The Making of the English

Working Class, in a survey class on modern European history. No, that would be a bit much. Also,

I only assign four or maybe five texts per course because that seems a reasonable amount given the

fact that most of my students work full time. My typical student is what I could call non-traditional.

With an average age of twenty-five, the majority of my students hold down full-time jobs and many

of them are married with kids. So, assigning more than 100 pages per week would be asking too

much. I realize their limitations. On the other hand, as a graduate student taking an advanced

undergraduate course in United States Cultural and Intellectual History, I well remember that all of us had to read nine or ten books.

In order to make the reading of history more satisfying and more purposeful, you must make an

effort. This means that you must have a general sense of the subject matter. You can't just jump

into a text and expect to get much out of it especially if the subject matter is genuinely alien to you.

If you do just jump in, you will quickly become lost as the information presented will make little

sense.

Okay, so it's the beginning of the term and you've been given your first reading assignment. Let's



say you are enrolled in my 20th Century Europe course and you have been asked to read Modris

Eksteins' The Rites of Spring . How do you begin?

1. Pick up the book, look at the covers. See anything interesting?

2. Who wrote the book? Does the publisher give you any information?

3. When was it written? Do you think this makes a difference? Why?

4. Scan the Table of Contents. See anything you like?

5. Read the Preface and Introduction.

6. Are there any illustrations? footnotes? a bibliography?

7. Can you determine the general thesis of the book?

8. Read the first sentence. Does it hold your attention? Or, do you then put the book down and say,

"I'll start reading this tomorrow"?

9. Does it look like a good book? worthy to be read?

10. Why might your instructor have assigned this particular text?

That's actually quite a bit of investigative work on your part and you haven't even really started to

read your assignment. Still, this is something you must do. Reading involves engagement. Reading is

not passive. You must make the effort. If you don't, disaster, and that's what we're trying to avoid.

In the example above, the text under review is what is called a monograph. Written by a historian,

the monograph deals with a very specific portion of the historical record. In Eksteins' case, the

subject is World War I and the birth of modernism. In terms of chronology, Eksteins only considers

the period 1900-1930 and his subject matter is specifically European. When reading a monograph,

you need to pay special attention to the author's general thesis. Your instructor has assigned the

monograph because (1) it covers the material he wants to cover and (2) it provides a specific

interpretation. That interpretation may be an accepted one or simply one that your instructor agrees

with. In some cases, your instructor may have deliberately assigned a book whose thesis is at

variance with his own. Why would an instructor do this? Simple! To force his students to clarify

their own position and to show them that there are indeed various historical interpretations.

The monograph aside, the most common history assignment, however, is the reading of a textbook

Textbooks are rarely exciting stuff and so you need to approach them a bit differently. For one

thing, they are usually the work of several authors. This means that a variety of interpretations are at

work. So many, in fact, that oftentimes, the end result is no interpretation at all. You are left with

1000 pages of "stuff" without an interpretive structure. Of course, like films and food, there are bad

textbooks and good ones. Bad textbooks either cover too much material or just the opposite, they

don't cover enough. As you might have guessed, the better textbooks make the attempt to balance

length with coverage.

Check out the textbook the same way you checked out the monograph. Thumb through the book,

look at the pictures, tables and maps. Anything strike your eye? Take a look at one chapter. How is

the chapter organized? Get familiar with the layout because there's a good chance the textbook will

be your main focus for the duration of the semester.

If you've been assigned a textbook you should always make every effort to read those chapters

which are directly related to the lectures presented in class. If your instructor is any good, the

structure of the class will follow the organization of the textbook. Underline and somehow mark

information which seems to be important. However, you must be able to distinguish between what is



truly important and the evidence the historian draws upon to fashion his conclusions. Don't

underline everything!

If you like, make notes in the margins of the text. Look at the photographs, maps and illustrations.

Do they help you in any way or do you just gloss over them as perhaps unnecessary?

You may also be tempted to make notes on your reading. While I guarantee that this technique will

improve your chances for greater understanding, you will also be spending a great deal more time on

your assignments, perhaps more time than is really necessary. Again, you really need to learn to"read" your instructor. You must ask yourself why your instructor is making you read this

assignment. If you insist on taking notes from the text it is perhaps best to organize them into outline

format, otherwise you will be re-writing the book!

It's also worth asking yourself how much time you plan to devote to reading your history

assignments on a weekly basis. If your instructor has carefully organized the class, you should

know, by a quick glance at the syllabus, just how many pages you are responsible for per week. So

add up the pages for the assignment. You can then split the reading into equal sections or perhaps

just plan on reading for a specified period of time per day. An hour per day ought to suffice although

in the end it all depends on how quickly you read. And of course, reading a textbook takes adifferent kind of attention than does reading a monograph. Keep asking yourself, "What does my

instructor want me to get out of this?"

You may also be assigned a book of readings for your course. I use this type of text frequently.

These books usually contain a series of primary sources as well as secondary sources which help to

explain the primary sources. These texts are sometimes called sourcebooks or readers. If you are

assigned such a text your instructor expects that you read the selections and be able to highlight the

general argument, for that is the whole point of the sourcebook. The primary documents usually

become the groundwork for in-class discussions, hence their importance. Do not take these readings

lightly. For example, in the past I have based an entire ninety minute discussion on a primary sourceas short as one paragraph.

To sum up, the only way you are going to get through all the reading is to approach it with the

proper attitude, something I have already discussed. Approach the reading in a positive way--don't

build brick walls! Most instructors assign readings because they want their students to read. (Then

again, there are also professors who assign reading because they know they are supposed to assign

reading!) Lectures are one thing. Books are another. And whether your instructor assigns textbooks,

monographs, sourcebooks or even novels, the above rules all apply.

One last thing. Feel free to assess the assigned readings. Although end of semester courseevaluations often contain a section where the student can assess the books, why not tell your

professor as you are reading the text. Is it any good? Should it be used again? Why is it good? or

bad? I've always had the habit of asking students about the books while they are reading them. Afte

all, I need to know whether of not these books are worth using again. And by asking the students

their opinion of a text is an excellent way to develop a relationship between instructor and student. I

don't know about you, but I've always thought it a good thing when an instructor asks a class,

"Well, what do you think?"



2.2 Taking Notes in Class

Okay, you are in the classroom, you've got the proper attitude, your instructor seems eager and

energetic and you're ready to learn. Your instructor starts talking about the diffusion and

popularization of science in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. You listen to the first few words

and then you begin to take notes. Copious notes. At the end of 90 minutes you have literally re-

written the lecture. Your hand is sweaty from the constant writing and you've filled up seven pages

of your notebook. But one thing is missing. You forgot to listen to the lecture.

This is a common problem not only in history classes but in all classes. You are so afraid that you

might miss something "important" that your tendency is to write everything down. I know this for a

fact. We all do because we have all committed this error at one time or another. I realize it's easy fo

me to say this, but it is much better to listen to the lecture carefully and record only those things that

were genuinely important. Fine. Just how is this done?

[1] If your instructor has assigned reading for that particular day, make sure you have read it. The

reading assignment is there because your professor plans to discuss that topic on that particular day.

If you have read the assignment, and perhaps even taken notes on your reading, then the lecture isgoing to make that much more sense. And instead of listening to your professor covering unknown

territory, you will already have an idea of the subject, thus making listening to the topic a bit more

enjoyable and in the long run, more worthwhile.

[2] Since your professor will undoubtedly give you some type of exam on the material--whether

essay or objective--be sure to determine which points of the lectures are given more weight than

others. Some instructors will come right out and say something like "This is important." Others will

not. In the last analysis, you have to read between the lines to determine the importance of those

points being made during a lecture. Of course, a conscientious professor will hand out an outline so

that you can, at a glance, grasp the meaning of the entire lecture.

Because so much of your understanding of history depends upon interpretation, you have to be able

to differentiate your interpretation from your professor's and from the assigned reading. In my own

classes I stress individual interpretation. That is because (with the exception of lower division

courses, like Western Civilization), I always assign essay questions on exams, exams which are more

often than not, completed at home rather than in class. However, if you are confronted with an

essay question which demands an interpretation, realize that you must be knowledgeable of many

interpretations and not just your own, or your professor's. Of course, some professors will demand

that you parrot back only information that they themselves have given you. While I regard this as

most facile, you should make every effort to "read" the desires of your instructor.

[3] It goes without saying that your notes should be written legibly. I wouldn't suggest re-writing

your notes after every class but sometimes this will help you understand and recollect the material

better. Organize your notes into brief sections. Do not write everything out in paragraph form. If

you do, you will find your notes nearly impossible to understand when exam time rolls around. Use

arrows, stars, asterisks and other notational devices to highlight things that seem really important. If

there are some things you wrote down which were not adequately explained then you have to bring

them to the attention of your instructor. If he's worth anything, he will explain them to you. As a

rule, if there is ANYTHING you don't understand, bring it up during the next class section. If not,



you will be doing yourself, and everyone else in the class, a great injustice.

I can't tell you how many times I've lectured about one topic or another only to find that one or

more students were confused about something fundamental to the entire argument at hand. Why

didn't they raise their hands? This is education, you know. They are afraid. I know that because I

was once there myself. You have to raise your hand and ask away. Embarrassed as it makes me

feel, it was quite late in my academic studies that I finally understood the meaning of the expression,

"the end/means justifies the means/end." So today, when I teach, I stop every so often and ask

whether everyone understands the word "hegemony" or "ideology" or "aphorism" or the concept of

a renaissance. And if you find yourself attending a class where the terminology escapes you, it is

your responsibility to bring this to your instructor's attention. Unless you make your difficulties

known, there's a good chance your instructor will never know. So, raise your hand and ask your

question!

[4] Always record the title and date of the lecture since your instructor may refer to it in the future.

This is good organizational practice as well. Make sure the notes follow the order in which the

professor conducted the lecture. After all, your notes will later serve as a basis for reviewing when

studying for a test or writing assignment. Feel free to revise your notes at some point after the

lecture, usually the same day. You may even want to get into the habit of underlining or highlighting

topical headings or defined words or ideas. And speaking of definitions, it's also a good idea to keep

a glossary of frequently used names, ideas, and words in your notebook for future reference. You'd

be surprised at how helpful this becomes later down the road.

For instance, in my Twentieth Century Europe class I announced on the first day that all students

should write the word modernism at the top of a sheet of paper and every time they read or hear or

think about something that has to do with modernism, they should write it down. Since the first six

weeks of the class are about modernism, and they will be writing an essay on modernism, such an

exercise seems necessary.

In another class, A History of European Socialism, I demanded that while my students were reading

a number of works by Marx and Engels, they ought also to keep a running Glossary. Since Marx

and Engels use so many words and expressions (ie., proletariat, ideology, means of production,

ruling ideas, capital, etc.) that are unique to themselves and their historical period, students will

become lost unless they have a common vocabulary from which to obtain their ideas and valuations

In fact, a glossary of important words, events, ideas, and people would be an aid even to the best of

students. Why settle for less when you are easily capable of more?

[5] If your professor has a film scheduled that does not mean it is an excuse to sleep or to not payattention or to not show up at all. The film is there for a purpose. I assign several films in many of

my courses and they always end up as integral parts of the course as a whole, otherwise I would

never have included them. Every paper topic I assign asks the student to consider a specific film as

well as lectures and readings. Should you take notes? Well, the only way you can take any notes is

if you know beforehand why in fact your instructor has decided to show you the film in the first

place. So, you should ask your professor if he does not tell you.

I routinely show Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" and "Dr. Strangelove," Bergman's "The Seventh Seal,"

Chaplin's "Modern Times" and Lucas' "THX-1138." A film, like a novel, can be "read" on several





If you are about to take an objective exam, your only task is to parrot back everything your

instructor told you was important (whether it is or not is a different story). The only thing I can say

about this type of exam is that you either know the material or you don't. Hopefully, you fall into

the former category. But what if your enlightened instructor gives you an essay exam. How do you

proceed?

First of all, remain calm and confident. Your instructor has given you an essay question or questions

in order to examine how well you can synthesize the information which has been presented in class.

So, you need to look at the big picture as well as the smaller ones which are contained within it. You

must write quickly but clearly. Spending twenty minutes thinking for a thirty minute essay will not

do. Then again, jumping right in after reading the question once will not do either. There must be

some kind of happy medium.

When you are given the exam, read every question carefully. Unless your instructor has given you

anticipated times for each part, you will have to decide how long to spend on each question. Begin

with the easiest questions first, ie., the ones you know the most about. Try to let your ideas flow

from your brain to your pen. Trust your confidence. You know the answer. Now write your answer

as if you were explaining it to someone who was educated but who did not know that much about

the topic at hand.

You should avoid padding your answer with verbiage. Get to the point. Back up your position. In

general, your best tactic is to answer the question! I know that sounds simplistic but as a college

history instructor, that's the kind of answer I like to see. Here are some other tips worth considering:

1. Don't write the first thing that comes to your mind. Read the question carefully. Take a few

notes. Think.

2. Think organization. How will your answer be organized? Here it is helpful to jot down a short

outline, even if it's only something like 1, 2, 3. Even that will help.

3. Your answer must be specific or general as the question suggests. Never wander away from

the topic. If the question says, "compare," then that is what you must do. If it asks you to

"describe," then describe. "Identify and discuss the significance of..." means just that.

4. Please don't repeat yourself. Instructors tire of this "technique" quickly. It may add words to

your essay but it takes away from the final grade.

5. When necessary, refer to the facts. After all, it's the facts that will give evidence to your main

points.

6. Refer to concrete points of historical time. There's nothing quite so frustrating for an

instructor than to read an essay in which five centuries of human endeavor have been

jumbled together as if all history took place yesterday. If you know specific dates, use them.

7. You should re-read your answers whenever possible. It's not that necessary to edit but do

make sure that what you say is clearly stated. Your instructor will appreciate it too.

8. You should make every effort to write legibly.







You may be tempted to drag out an encyclopedia. Go ahead, that's a good move. It may help fill in

gaps. Above all, begin to think!

To give force to the above statement about the importance of the first sentence of your essay,

consider the following: "When this century was still young, a brand new ideological force which

came to be known as "fascism" burst upon a Europe just recovering from the body-blows of the

First World War and the Russian Revolution." Now that is an excellent opening line. Of course, it

was written by a historian (Roger Griffin, ed., Fascism, Oxford, 1995, p. v). But you can do the

same thing! Trust yourself. Confidence. If you know what you are talking about, then say what youreally want to say. JUST DO IT!

Following your killer opening salvo, you should write a paragraph or two which further explains the

importance of Fascism. Mention names -- Mussolini for one. Mention events--the First World War

and the Russian Revolution? Mention dates. The twentieth century didn't occur last night. There's a

lot of years to consider. Use dates! You should also outline, in barest form, the remainder of your

essay. Got a good quotation? Use it here. A quotation as the first sentence of your essay is also an

excellent way to grab the attention of your reader.

On to the hardest part--the body of the essay. It is in the body of your essay that an outline will become necessary. Without an outline you will have the tendency to roam over a lot of material

without any coherent plan of attack. Your professor will tire easily. "Get to the point!" he may write

in the margin. Outline every single paragraph. Your outline can consist of numbered points, each

one of which is a paragraph or, you can develop a complex outline in which each point of each

section is a sentence unto itself. Whatever works best for you.

I can't stress enough the need for outlining your essays. I know this for a fact because I almost

never used an outline as an undergraduate student. Even in graduate school I had to learn this

technique. After two years of reading my essays, my advisor finally "advised" that I take an essay

that I already had written and outline it. In other words, I was outlining in reverse. Know what Isoon discovered? Simple. My writing had very little logical order or consistency. And if your essays

are illogical or inconsistent, well, then, you're going to have problems. So, my advice is to outline,

outline, outline. If you're daring, try outlining your lecture notes without looking at the outline your

instructor may have given you or written on the board. Can you do it?

Okay, you've written the body of the essay. You're feeling good. You believe you have

demonstrated the essential focus of your opening sentence. Now it's time to conclude. This is not

the place for the "I believe...," "I think that...," "in my opinion..." and so on. Your professor knows

that it's you who are writing so there's no need to remind him. Again, just say what's on your mind.

A conclusion ought not simply repeat arguments, although there are ways to do this without simplyresorting to the list format. Instead, use the information you have established in the rest of your

essay to fashion a general statement about the topic. Was Fascism important, for example, only

within the context of European history, 1914-1945? Or, does Fascism perhaps have a history that

lay outside the war and interwar years? Is there a relationship between Fascism and the Roman

Empire? What is the difference between fascism and totalitarianism? Be daring. Be bold. If you

have some point to make, perhaps a different way of thinking about the topic, then by all means say

it. Your professor will commend you for it.

A short essay can include references to other works and if you frequently use quotations from these







4.3 The Research Essay -- "Imaging" Your Topic

Once you have the topic under control, now is the time to use the powers of your intelligence and

"image" the topic. We've discussed "imaging" already. You must be able to see your topic in your

mind--you must conceive before you can execute. What does the topic look like? Does it interest

you? Will it interest anyone else? Can you see certain sections of the essay? Do you have a mental

image? This is important.

To get you started quicker, ask yourself what it is that you are most intent on finding out about the

subject. In other words, you have already selected a general topic. Now is the time to narrow it

down to something more specific (that is, something which better meets the confines of the research

essay). Will you be describing something? analyzing? comparing? criticizing? Have you decided to

investigate a large block of historical time? or just a small episode embodied within it? Ask yourself

as many questions as you can. Write them down if that helps. Conceptualize the topic as much as

possible and the execution of the essay will be that much easier.

You also need to look at your topic realistically. Obviously, no one would contemplate a topic so

broad as "A History of Europe, 1648-1996," for an essay only twenty pages in length. Not onlycould you not condense 350 years of European history in twenty pages, fifteen weeks is hardly

enough time to do the research for a longer study, even if it were possible.

If you know very little about your topic, your first task is obviously to learn more. Suppose your

general topic is the Age of Enlightenment. This a broad topic. Consult an encyclopedia. You will run

across names (Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, Paine), events (Lisbon Earthquake, French Revolution),

and ideas (scepticism, deism, liberty). Perhaps one of these things strikes your fancy. Suddenly, you

find yourself attracted to Tom Paine's essay The Age of Reason, in general, and his ideas on deism

in particular. You begin to ask yourself questions: who was Tom Paine? what is deism? who were

the deists? why did deism appear when it did? what effect does deism have on the movement for parliamentary reform in England in the 1790s? Then, for whatever reason, you are led to an entirely

different topic, say, English political radicals in the age of the French Revolution. Through your

discovery of Paine's Rights of Man, you encounter the radical philosopher William Godwin. He was

an anarchist which is odd because he was writing at a time (1790s) when most English radicals were

trying to reform Parliament, not abolish it altogether. You then thumb through a brief biography of

Godwin and soon discover that he married Mary Wollstonecraft, an out-spoken feminist who wrote

the first critique of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (Paine's Rights of

Manwas a response to Burke's Reflections as well). You also find out that Godwin and

Wollstonecraft produced a daughter, Mary, who later married Percy Bysshe Shelley, and

wrote Frankenstein. Quite a jump from your first initial interest in Paine's deism, isn't it? And all of this could have taken place in a week or two. I mention this example because using this same

technique, I arrived at a topic for seminar paper which happened to be about the notion of human

perfectibility in the thought of William Godwin.

To conclude, with a little investigative work on your part, which means a trip to your library, you

must narrow down your topic to something which (1) can be discussed in the required twenty pages

(or whatever length has been specified) and (2) still interests you, hopefully even more than the

original nebulous topic.



4.4 The Research Essay -- Off to the Library

Make no mistake, beginning research means beginning at the library. The library is your best

resource for finding out information about your proposed topic. Internet resources may help you

conduct some research but you always have to start in the library (more about this in a moment).For the purpose of this and the following sections we'll need an example and I know no better

example than the one I used above. So, we'll imagine that you are enrolled in a course on

Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1850, and you have elected to write some kind of essay on William

Godwin. You've seen this thick book, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice by Godwin. You've

picked it up. It looks interesting. It has an interesting cover. The weight of the book feels good in

your hands. You've also seen Godwin's name mentioned a few times in your textbook and once in

another book which was assigned for the course. Your instructor, however, never once uttered his

name (why not?). You learn that Godwin doesn't get much notice, especially alongside Burke,

Paine, Robespierre, Marx, Babeuf, Proudhon and others. In fact, you're curious as to why Godwin

rarely gets more than a passing footnote. But there's something about that thick book that interests

you.

So you begin to read. First the Introduction, a lengthy essay by Isaac Kramnick. You learn that

Godwin was a philosophical anarchist, husband to Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley. You

learn that Godwin wrote a number of books, all with political themes. He also wrote a number of

novels, among them Caleb Williams and Fleetwood: The New Man of Feeling . You find that

Godwin's idea of human perfectibility is fascinating, as fascinating as is his argument that the

ultimate reform of government means the annihilation of government. Hey, it's 1996, an election

year. People are talking candidates, politics and voting. Along comes Godwin, two hundred years in

the past. He views all political associations (or parties) as inconsistent with the principles of political

justice: "The whole is then wound up, with that flagrant insult upon all reason and justice, the

deciding upon truth by the casting up of numbers." So much for politics! You turn off MSNBC's

coverage of the Conventions. Godwin seems more interesting. You decide to go with it.

Reading Kramnick's Introduction further, you realize that Godwin was a Dissenter. Hmm, what's

that? And that he was brought up in a Calvinist household and later became an atheist and anarchist.

You read some anecdote that Godwin relates in his diary about the Sunday his father beat him

because he picked up a cat. Hmm, more food for thought. You learn that he influenced Romantic

poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley or political radicals like Tom Paine and John

Thelwall (who's he?). You also discover that he had no dealings with the London Corresponding

Society (???) or the Society for Constitutional Information (???) or that he was no advocate of

violent revolution. Hmm, a radical anarchist writing at the peak of the radical stage of the French

Revolution (The Terror) has no sympathy for revolution. More questions.

You begin to formulate a picture in your mind...the "image" that we've been talking about all along.

You're even more interested at this point. You thumb through the book and find Kramnick's

bibliography. You drag out your notebook and begin to write down the names of authors and their

books and articles. Good job! That's where it all begins.



You rush off to the library with your rough bibliography and head right to the card catalog or the

online terminals. (I won't discuss the use of either card catalogs or online computer catalogs. Their

use is fairly straight-forward. Ask a librarian if in doubt.) It's time to start finding these books. But

first, you look up Godwin himself. Hunh! There's quite a bit of stuff. You write it all down.

Ford K. Brown, The Life of William Godwin (1926)

David Fleisher, William Godwin: A Study in Liberalism (1951)

Rosalie Glynn Grylls, William Godwin and His Circle (1953)

Don Locke, A Fantasy of Reason: The Life and Thought of William Godwin (1980)

D.H.Monroe, Godwin's Moral Philosophy: An Interpretation of William Godwin (1953)

C. Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, 2 vols (1876)

You head to the appropriate section of the stacks on the appropriate floor and there you are,

"Godwin Central"! You pull those books off the shelves whose titles and authors you had recorded

earlier. You glance quickly at each book. You've got a stack ten high. But wait, one of these books

is missing! Where is it? Ask the librarian where the book might be. Better yet, and before you ask

the library staff, go back to the card catalog and make sure you copied the information correctly.

[Even in the most well-organized library, books are often not where they are supposed to be.

Perhaps that particular title is getting rebound. Perhaps it's been moved to storage because no one

has borrowed it for fifty years. Perhaps it's been stolen. Who knows?]

Find a table. Fast! Sit down. Open your notebook and pick up the first book. Turns out to be a

biography written sixty years ago. Interesting. Here's another biography, only this one is less than

five years old. You learn that this latter volume was written by an instructor in philosophy at Notre

Dame. The other volume was written by a literary critic. Hmm. I wonder if that makes a difference?

You may begin to notice that many of these books say the same thing. They contain biographical

information but many of them also focus on that historical topic known as "The French Revolution

in English History." Interesting topic. Perhaps you need to re-visit the card catalog and do a bit of research on the French Revolution as well as England in the 1790s. And what about Dissent? Might

that not also play a role? After all, who were the Dissenters? Is there a connection between Dissent

and radicalism?

You've now spent two hours at the library and you decide that's enough for the day. You leave the

library, perhaps to attend your next class. But first you borrow ten books. Your mind is busy at

work. Who was Godwin, anyway?

At this stage of the game, all you can hope to accomplish is the collection of a reading list. You have

checked several books and brought a few of them home with you. You haven't even begun to tapthe journal literature as yet. Still, you feel as if you are just a bit closer to getting this whole research

essay together.

But you've forgotten one thing and it's organizational. You need a way to collect and collate all those

books (and later journal articles) that you've seen. Enter the 3 x 5 index card . No serious writer of

the research essay should leave home without their stash of index cards. But what are these things

for? Why can't you just write all this stuff down on pieces of paper and keep them in your

notebook? Easy. They get lost. They are disorganized. It's tough to alphabetize a list of books when

you've got five references on one sheet of paper, two on another and one on still one more. What



do you do? Here's the solution, and it's a simple one.

First, go buy a pack of 100 3 x 5 index cards, any color. Grab half the deck and place a rubber band

around them. Next, carry them whenever you go to the library to do more research. Every time you

see a book that you might use, enter its bibliographical information on one index card. You can do

this at home as well. Whenever you encounter a likely "find," write the author's name and title along

with the bibliographic data on one of the cards. When you next go to the library, you can verify the

resource. If your library doesn't have the title you can do one of two things: (1) forget the resource

or (2) order the title from Interlibrary Loan (ask your librarian!). The information should be entered

in the exact order in which that title will appear in your finished bibliography. For example:

Goodwin, Albert. The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the

French Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

or

Godwin, William. Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and i ts Influence on Modern Morals and

Happiness. Edited by Isaac Kramnick. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.

I repeat, record all the required bibliographical information exactly as it will appear in the finished

product. DO NOT USE ABBREVIATIONS! This is important. For example, does "Brit." meanBritain or British or Britannia? Perhaps you meant to say Briton? See what I mean? Regarding the

"style" or "format" of the finished bibliography is concerned, at this point you should ask your

professor what style manual he prefers, that is, if he hasn't already told you (and he should have).

One rule of thumb is this: whatever style you use for your paper (and that means spacing, margins,

footnotes, citations, etc.), you should never mix formats. In other words, be consistent. While a

discussion of the various style manuals is beyond the scope of this document, the student would do

well to consult one of the following. All three manuals have gone through several editions so make

sure you use the latest one.

· Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

· Joseph Gibaldi and Walter S. Achtert, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers

· The Chicago Manual of Style for Authors, Editors, and Copywriters

A number of citation style sheets have also begun to appear on the World Wide Web. I list only a

few of them here:

· Melvin Page's Brief Citation Guide (http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~africa/citation.html)

· Citing Electronic Information in History Papers (Maurice Crouse)

(http://history.memphis.edu/mcrouse/elcite.html

· Beyond the MLA Handbook (http://www.vwc.edu/wwwpages/dgraf/mlaplus.htm)

You should also record the call number of the book. Why? Simple. Since you can only borrow the

book for a short period of time, it will eventually need to be returned. If you need to refer to it again

in the future, why go through the card catalog again? After all, what these 3 x 5 cards will really be

doing for you is building your own card catalog! You should also record the date you read the book

and also record any notes about the general utility of the book. For example, using the Albert

http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.2/inbox/mla.html

http://history.memphis.edu/mcrouse/elcite.html

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~africa/citation.html









Brown's The Life of William Godwin (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1926). You should have

noticed right away that the two books were written nearly sixty years apart. Now if, as an

undergraduate, I were writing a research essay on Godwin and needed only a dozen sources or so,

then I would choose the volume by Marshall. Why? Because there's an excellent chance that

Marshall is already familiar with any arguments that may have appeared in Brown's book. So, why

waste your time reading Brown when Marshall has perhaps already done the work for you? Of

course, if this were a graduate school seminar essay or thesis, both texts would have to have been

consulted.

I must admit here that as an undergraduate and graduate student it was my habit to read everything,

or at the very least, as much as I could in the amount of time given. In other words, I have always

had a tendency to over-read (as well as over-research) a subject. Why did I do this? Well, to my

way of thinking, the more you read about one topic, the more you become familiar with common

names, events, people, places, ideas and so on. I bombarded myself with information and after a

while, things just begin to sink in. The other tactic would be to carefully read just a few books and

"study" them. Whichever technique you choose is entirely up to you. I happen to be a fast reader so

I chose the former technique. Reading may not come easy to you or perhaps you don't have enough

time to read everything. You will have to adjust your research habits accordingly.

What you need to read will, of course, be determined by the subject matter. In the case of the

Godwin example I have used throughout this section, there is a wealth of information available. But

not nearly so much as might be available on, say, Hitler or the Nazis, for example. Just to put this

into perspective, in the Forward to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi

Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), William Shirer mentions that 485 tons of records

of the German Foreign Office were captured by the U.S. First Army in the Harz Mountains just as

they were about to be burned on orders from Berlin. 485 tons! And those are just the records of the

German Foreign Office! No wonder so much has been written about Hitler, the Nazis and World

War Two.

Since you don't have the time to read everything, you should be able to determine whether a book

may be of use to you by following these guidelines:

· Try to locate books that match your topic exactly

· Once you have these books in hand, locate those titles which pertain to the topic in general.

Glance at the Table of Contents and Index. Are there direct references to your topic? Is a

chapter devoted to your subject? or just a page? Or worse, just a footnote?

· If there is a bibliography (and there almost always is) go through the entire thing and see if you can locate other books which might help you.

· When was the book published? Obviously, if your topic is something like slavery in American

society, a book published in say, 1934, is going to give you a different approach than one

written in 1894 or 1964 or 1996. (Ask yourself why.)

· Read the Preface or, if it isn't too lengthy, the Introduction.

· If a book is consistently cited in the literature about your topic, then it's a good bet that you



should be familiar with it as well.

Determining the number of books you ought to use to conduct your research is a judgment call and

really depends on the topic you have selected. If you have selected a topic for which very little

secondary literature exists then you will more than likely need to master it all. However, if

confronted with the tonnage of materials indicative of World War Two scholarship, then you are

going to have to refine your topic considerably. Your professor ought to give you some idea of the

kind of research he expects and if he doesn't, then it is up to you to ask. You can't read everything

in such a short period of time as one semester, so you must learn to choose carefully and avoid texts

which duplicate stuff you've read elsewhere. That's why it's usually a good idea to read more recent

works of historical scholarship since the author has already done some of the research for you.

4.7 The Research Essay -- Taking Notes

So, you've now got your topic. You've written a draft proposal for your instructor or teaching

assistant. You've done the legwork at the library and you've got some ideas drawn up in outline

form. Excellent! You're ready to get down to the actual research. Now's the time that you start

taking notes. How do you proceed?

Well, the first rule is quite simple: To take good notes is to know in advance what you are

looking for. That sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But how many times have you gone into

research mode by consuming everything and writing down everything you've seen? Talk about over

kill! It's not necessary. What is necessary is to know why you are looking at a specific source. That

might mean a great deal of reading or, in some cases, quite a bit less. It all depends on the topic.

More important, however, it all depends on what you are looking for. Keep that question in the fron

of your mind as you conduct your research: why am I looking at this source? what am I looking for?

Well, you first need a clear understanding and grasp of your topic. If you don't have a clue abouthow you are going to proceed (or why) then you will find yourself with a pile of notes you will

never use. Worse still, you could fail to take notes on things which are essential to the successful

completion of your essay. Regardless, you might find yourself in way over your head before you've

even really begun your work. This usually occurs when you first set out to research a topic. You

have some vague idea about the topic but have not yet refined it. For example, you know you want

to write something about William Godwin and his notion of human perfectibility but what about

after that? In other words, it's not enough to say you want to write about such and such a topic.

You need to ask yourself why. Off you go. You read inconsistently and wildly and take notes on

things which may not end up in the finished product. So, it is essential that you carefully define the

nature and scope of your research, and stick to it. Again, time management is important for thesimple fact that you don't have much time (more about this below).

As you begin reading your primary and secondary sources you will find sections of those sources

which you may wish to include in your own essay. What is the general idea the author is trying to

convey? Write it down. Is he pressing a specific interpretation? What is it? What sorts of sources

does the author utilize? And of course, is the author's book useful to you in any way?

You may find yourself pulling quotations from various texts. That's okay. In fact, you must use

quotations in historical writing of any kind. The rule is: copy the quote exactly as it appeared. Don't



change the word order or change the text in any way. It is absolutely essential that the meaning of

the quotation you use is absolutely clear. Above all, do not use the quotation out of the context

established by the author. If you do so, then you will be twisting the arguments of that particular

author, and you will be defeating the purpose of using the quotation in the first place.

Using quotations to establish both your understanding of the topic under review and to give evidence

to what you are saying is essential. But, using too many quotations is not a good thing. In the

hundreds of essays I've read over the years, I have sometimes seen students submit papers in which

paragraphs are nothing but a series of quotations strung together. You can't do this. As a rule,

quoting an author is not enough. You need to explain to your reader why you have selected this

quotation in the first place. In other words, saying this or that is not enough. You have to explain

why and this means discussing the importance or significance of the quote. You'll soon find that

explaining a quotation from a primary or secondary source will enhance your own writing and your

own comprehension of the topic.

Okay, well how to do use quotations intelligently and forcefully? Well, use them when they are

needed ("when in doubt, leave it out"). You need to learn to paraphrase the arguments of an author.

In this way, an author's interpretation can be blended with your own, or your overall discussion. So

read the passage, or section, or chapter and then, first in your mind and then on paper, record your

understanding of it. Try to explain things in your own words first, and then retrieve a quotation or

series of short quotations to give force to what you just said. Like writing in general, knowing when

to use quotations is an art in itself. I have always found that beginning a paragraph with a quotation

is an excellent way to prepare your reader for what is to come. Of course, ending a paragraph with a

quote is an excellent way of tying together the previous discussion. And yes, inserting quotations in

the body of a paragraph will focus the reader's attention. Quotations, used judiciously throughout

your research essay, can be of benefit to you by enhancing the finished product.

One more thing. There will be times that an author will quote another author. You can use the

quotation from the other author but be sure to locate the original source (it's usually a footnote). If

you can't locate it, then you will have to acknowledge that in some way (in a footnote of your own)

Okay, so you've learned a few tips toward more economical note taking. You've learned the

necessity of quoting an author's words, when applicable. But where do all these notes go? How do

you take notes?

Well, we're back to the index cards again. Only this time, instead of using a 3 x 5 card, buy yourself

either 4 x 6 or 5 x 8 index cards. (I prefer the 5 x 8 card.) But why not use the same 3 x 5 card?

Simple: you'll need more room on the note cards because they will contain more than just

bibliographical information. Fine, you've got the cards, now what?

The general rule is that your cards ought to contain only one idea or discussion of an idea. Your

cards ought to contain information from one source only. Going back to the Godwin example above

it's poor practice to put the following on one card.

---Godwin was the son of a Dissenting minister who punished him often for his frivolity on Sundays

(Grylls, p.34)

---Godwin was also a minor radical who wrote a lot in the 1790s.

---Caleb Williams was Godwin's most famous novel.



---Paine and Godwin knew one another. (pp.42-45)

---Godwin called for a "well-conceived" or "simple form of society without government." ( Political

Justice, II, p.325)

See the problems here? You've got a bunch of different topics as well as sources all located on one

card. How then should you proceed? Well, for starters, title a bunch of cards "Biography," and then

on those cards put information which only relates to Godwin's biographical details. Another series of

cards would be devoted to Godwin's fiction (and perhaps a stack of cards just on Caleb Williams),

still other cards to his relationship with Tom Paine and still other cards with his ideas on

government. You might even want to keep another set of cards which describe some of Godwin's

contemporaries. It's even a good idea to keep some cards which list modern writers who have made

Godwin the focus of some of their published work (you know, the Godwin scholars!). Again, only

one source on each card. Don't mix ideas, sources, reflections or quotations on one card.

When you've begun to collect a number of note cards, it's a good idea to keep them in separate

piles, each tied together with a rubber band. You can even buy a file box (sort of like a card catalog

drawer) in which to keep them, separated by markers. You can make one yourself if you are

enterprising enough. The bottom line is: keep things organized. The bigger the research project, the

more organization your project will require. Let's move on.

If you use direct quotations from any of your sources, make sure that you (1) copy the quote

exactly, (2) write the author's name and short title under the quote and (3) make sure the page

number is correct. The reason is so that you will have your direct reference correctly cited. And

why would you want to do that? Simple? The reason we use footnotes is so that someone reading

our work can locate the source of the quotation. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Here's an example of a good note card taken from my own research:

Derek Fraser, in his Evolution of the Welfare State, calls Godwin a "near anarchist " (p.98)

That's it. That's the whole card. Can you tell me why that's a good note card? Or why it might be a

good quotation? Here's another one. It's titled "Sincerity":

" How great would be the benefit, i f every man were sure of meeting in his neighbor the ingenuous

censor, who would tell him in person, and publish to the world, his virtues, his good deeds, his

meannesses and his follies?"

(Godwin, Political Justice, vol1, p.329)

---this must be impartial and dispassionate---cool logic without emotion (did Godwin "feel" anything?)

---Sincerity is a virtue, by its utility

As you can see, the entire content of this note pertains to Godwin's notion of sincerity, which he

also called "intellectual candor." I've even asked myself a question: "did Godwin feel anything?"

Perhaps this will make way for a discussion in the finished product. After all, one of Godwin's

problems, as I see it at least, was that he thought too much and felt too little and this attitude, would

be overcome by the English Romantic poets (Blake, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Coleridge and

Wordsworth). There you go, another topic: what was the relationship between the English



Romantics and Godwin? Perhaps you'll need a bunch of note cards on that as well. I imagine you're

starting to get the picture, one thing building upon and off another.

If the quotation you are citing runs to more than one card, then either continue on the backside or

begin a new card but be sure to number the card in some way so that you know where it belongs. I

wouldn't staple the two cards together because that'll make it difficult to use when you are actually

writing. Paper clips don't work either. Look at it this way. Say your sitting outside the student union

and for some reason, you drop your entire stack of cards. If you've marked them correctly, you

should be able to place them back into their proper order without much problem. Need I say it

again, but organization is everything. The more organized you become, the more organized and your

research will surely be.

After a while, depending on how much energy you devote to your research, you ought to begin to

collect a stack of note cards. That's good! Keep them handy--that is, on your desk or carry them

whenever you head over to the library. You can also use the note cards to record your own thought

as you progress through the early stages of your research. Record things that pertain to your topic,

questions you might have, things which ought to have been researched but haven't. In short, begin

to write the research essay (more about this to follow). Why was Godwin a minor radical? I don't

think he was such a person and here's why. Why did one author say that Godwin (an apparent

liberal) was similar, in many respects, to Edmund Burke (the father of a conservative political

theory)? Were all Dissenters politically active? Again, so many questions that need to be answered.

Take your time and think!

You will ordinarily record your research with your 5 x 8 cards and a pen. In some libraries,

especially archives, you will only be allowed to use a pencil due to the importance of many

manuscripts and documents. However, with so many laptops in the hands of students these days,

perhaps you might be tempted to do away with the poor little index card and just slap all your

information into a database of some sort. Well, I don't have any problem with that unless you can't

print up your notes on 5 x 8 index cards. Of course, computer text retrieval software is a great thing

to have at your disposal. There are a number of programs which will allow you to input

bibliographical information and then, with a few clicks of the mouse, generate a stylistically correct

bibliography. But, trying to write a research essay on Godwin with 350 individual notes tucked away

on the hard drive of your PC or Mac is going to be tough business. Why? Because you need to

spread these note cards out in front of you when you write. So, using your PC or Mac to help store

your data is fine as an adjunct, but not as the sole means of support for your research notes. Of

course, a great deal of this depends on the nature of your research. If you are quantifying

information, then a database is essential. But, if you are writing about the effect of Vico's philosophy

of history on the thought of Jules Michelet, well, you're going to need a different approach.

One final thought. And it bears upon something each and every writer has had to face at least once

in their career: plagiarism. Plagiarism can be defined as stealing the thoughts of another and using

them as your own. Worse than the mere mis-quoting of a source, plagiarism can get you into deep

trouble. On the one hand, you could end up with a failed grade on your essay. On the other hand,

stealing the thoughts of another means you've been lazy. You've taken the easy way out. Better to

struggle with knowledge than take the easy way out. I trust you agree.

The problem with reading history, especially the work of historians, is that they use a language





torment? Why not just accept that research essays entail two things: research and writing. How's it

done?

Well, for starters, you have to have a firm grasp of your topic, something I've discussed already.

You have to have made an outline of your essay. In this way you'll recognize what needs to be done

as well as what has been done. And, you have to stick to that outline. You can refine it as your

research proceeds, but in general, stick to that outline.

My required Historical Methods class in graduate school was an exercise in absurdity. I learnednothing. Well, perhaps in deference to the two instructors who had to deal with twenty-five eager

graduate students every Wednesday afternoon for three hours, I did learn something. The first thing

had to do with the necessity of keeping note cards, something I never bothered with as an

undergraduate. The second thing I learned was this: always write while you are engaged in research.

In other words, you have to start writing your essay before you've even completed the research for

it.

Granted, this is a tall order, but think about it. It does make sense! Perhaps you've run across an

interesting quotation that you've "imaged" belongs right at the top of your essay. You see the

quotation standing out on the page. You also intuit the meaning of the quotation as it relates to your entire enterprise. Well, my friend, rather than simply THINK about it, WRITE about it! I know the

transition is difficult. It means hard work, just like the whole business of researching the research

essay. But you've got to do it. Yes, you've just got to do it.

Here's the first sentence from my Ph.D. dissertation. Guess how long it took me to write it:

The history of the scientific management movement in twentieth century Britain has never been

adequately assessed by historians.

On the one hand, to write that sentence took me all of thirty seconds. On the other hand, in reality,it took me three years! I sat on my research. I used my research as a crutch, as a way to avoid

writing the dissertation. I procrastinated for a long time. And then I procrastinated a bit more. Again,

it doesn't have to be this way. Take control of the research essay rather than let it control you.

I can only offer you this advice because I never followed it myself. Listen carefully! Don't

procrastinate! Take your work seriously! If you do, then so will your professor. That makes sense,

doesn't it? Do you think your instructor really wants to read page after page of, for lack of a better

expression, words? After all, he's a human being. Why bore him to death? Give him an essay for

which you are proud. And why not? Why not do the best job you can?

So start writing as soon as you are able. Record your thoughts on paper, even if they don't make

any sense. You can always change them at a later date. And please don't think of research as Part 1

and writing as Part 2. That sort of thinking will get you in trouble. Think in terms of the whole

project as a whole project and not as the sum of individual parts. And lastly......

4.9 The Research Essay -- Budgeting Your Time

It pays to have some awareness of your limitations when attempting to write a research essay. So

much depends on so many variables: the number of classes you are taking; the length of the essay;



the number of sources and so on. You also need to "read" your instructor as much as possible. You

need to know what he expects from his students. Demanding instructors demand excellence,

especially when it comes to writing your research essay. So, they will require a minimum of twenty-

five pages perhaps, as well as a fairly sophisticated bibliography. Count on at least a dozen sources.

Perhaps more.

Then again, there are other professors who want to see you develop your own interpretative

structure based upon the nature and scope of your research topic. They will perhaps be less mindful

of the need to "pad" the bibliography and more focused on your interpretation and the manner in

which it is developed. And, of course, the whole thing hinges on the nature of your research topic

itself.

Regardless of which type of professor you may have, and there are others besides, it makes sense to

realize that you do need to keep time management in the front of your mind. Poor time management

would be the case if you spent a weekend checking a few sources, writing down some choice

quotations as you move along. The essay is then written over the course of twelve hours and the last

word is typed twenty minutes after the start of the class for which the paper is due. I'm not making

this up. I can't tell you how many students show up late to class on the day a paper (long or short) is

due. When confronted with why they invariably tell me that, "I was in the computer lab printing up

the essay when something went wrong with the printer." No sympathy for this student. Not from me

at least. I always respond with something like, "why didn't you start an hour earlier." They

sometimes miss the humor in that one!

When I began writing my dissertation in earnest I struck upon an ideal compromise. Of course, this

applies to the Ph.D. and M.A. only. I wrote from 7am to 1pm every day. That was it. No more no

less. In other words, I treated writing like a job. Know what happened? I wrote the

dissertation....quickly. Sometimes 10-12 pages per day.

Of course, as an undergraduate or high school student, you definitely don't have that luxury.Instead, you have contend with other classes and activities, family, perhaps even a job or a hundred

other things. So what do you do?

Set aside a specific block of time every day and work on your research and your writing.

(Remember to do both at the same time.) What could be more simple? Stick to the plan and you

should end up with a well-conceived and well-executed research essay. Of course, if you want to

spend an afternoon or evening, or even an entire day in the library, go right ahead. Just make sure

that what you are doing when you are in the library is real work. You've got more important things

to do with your time anyway, so why not use that time to your best advantage.

The bottom line is this: don't let yourself fall into the trap of trying to research and write a research

essay over the course of one weekend. You will not get a satisfactory grade. Instead, plan your time

carefully over the course of the semester. As soon as you have established your topic and have been

given the green light from your instructor, it's time to think. And all of this ought to be done in the

first few weeks of the term. Think carefully about the subject. Think about things you need to do.

Think about how long it will take you to do those things. And then think about how much time you

have at your disposal. The longer you wait, the more you procrastinate, the more difficult it will be

to write the sort of essay for which you will proud. And wouldn't you much rather write an essay

which gives you pride in your sense of accomplishment rather than one which simply fulfilled the



general requirements of the essay?

Every semester I encounter students who, when they submit their essay to me, say something like,

"It's not very good." I look at them and say, "then why don't you take it home and rewrite it so that

you can give me something good?" That makes them pause for a moment. After all, I would prefer

to read something "finished" rather than a rough draft. So my attitude is this: submit an essay for

which you are proud to attach your name. It makes sense.

4.9 The Research Essay -- Budgeting Your Time

It pays to have some awareness of your limitations when attempting to write a research essay. So

much depends on so many variables: the number of classes you are taking; the length of the essay;

the number of sources and so on. You also need to "read" your instructor as much as possible. You

need to know what he expects from his students. Demanding instructors demand excellence,

especially when it comes to writing your research essay. So, they will require a minimum of twenty-

five pages perhaps, as well as a fairly sophisticated bibliography. Count on at least a dozen sources.

Perhaps more.

Then again, there are other professors who want to see you develop your own interpretative

structure based upon the nature and scope of your research topic. They will perhaps be less mindful

of the need to "pad" the bibliography and more focused on your interpretation and the manner in

which it is developed. And, of course, the whole thing hinges on the nature of your research topic

itself.

Regardless of which type of professor you may have, and there are others besides, it makes sense to

realize that you do need to keep time management in the front of your mind. Poor time management

would be the case if you spent a weekend checking a few sources, writing down some choice

quotations as you move along. The essay is then written over the course of twelve hours and the lastword is typed twenty minutes after the start of the class for which the paper is due. I'm not making

this up. I can't tell you how many students show up late to class on the day a paper (long or short) is

due. When confronted with why they invariably tell me that, "I was in the computer lab printing up

the essay when something went wrong with the printer." No sympathy for this student. Not from me

at least. I always respond with something like, "why didn't you start an hour earlier." They

sometimes miss the humor in that one!

When I began writing my dissertation in earnest I struck upon an ideal compromise. Of course, this

applies to the Ph.D. and M.A. only. I wrote from 7am to 1pm every day. That was it. No more no

less. In other words, I treated writing like a job. Know what happened? I wrote thedissertation....quickly. Sometimes 10-12 pages per day.

Of course, as an undergraduate or high school student, you definitely don't have that luxury.

Instead, you have contend with other classes and activities, family, perhaps even a job or a hundred

other things. So what do you do?

Set aside a specific block of time every day and work on your research and your writing.

(Remember to do both at the same time.) What could be more simple? Stick to the plan and you

should end up with a well-conceived and well-executed research essay. Of course, if you want to



spend an afternoon or evening, or even an entire day in the library, go right ahead. Just make sure

that what you are doing when you are in the library is real work. You've got more important things

to do with your time anyway, so why not use that time to your best advantage.

The bottom line is this: don't let yourself fall into the trap of trying to research and write a research

essay over the course of one weekend. You will not get a satisfactory grade. Instead, plan your time

carefully over the course of the semester. As soon as you have established your topic and have been

given the green light from your instructor, it's time to think. And all of this ought to be done in the

first few weeks of the term. Think carefully about the subject. Think about things you need to do.

Think about how long it will take you to do those things. And then think about how much time you

have at your disposal. The longer you wait, the more you procrastinate, the more difficult it will be

to write the sort of essay for which you will proud. And wouldn't you much rather write an essay

which gives you pride in your sense of accomplishment rather than one which simply fulfilled the

general requirements of the essay?

Every semester I encounter students who, when they submit their essay to me, say something like,

"It's not very good." I look at them and say, "then why don't you take it home and rewrite it so that

you can give me something good?" That makes them pause for a moment. After all, I would prefer

to read something "finished" rather than a rough draft. So my attitude is this: submit an essay for

which you are proud to attach your name. It makes sense.

4.11 The Research Essay -- Footnotes

You should always use footnotes (or endnotes) in order to give the source of facts or opinions which

you have obtained from outside sources. If you quote any author, or document of any kind, you

must specify where the original information can be found. This is necessary for one reason only:

your reader may want to consult the same text or document, for whatever reason, and so you must

specify it. Of course, footnotes may also contain textual material of your own doing. There are timeswhen you want to make a statement about something but it doesn't quite fit in with your outline.

The best thing to do is to include this information as a textual footnote. In this way, you can still

include the information without taking away from the flow of the essay.

Again, all direct quotations must be footnoted, and there's no escaping that simple fact.

Controversial facts or opinions must also be footnoted. Finally, statements that you make which

support the main points of your essay must also be footnoted.

The number of footnotes to be used in a 20-30 page essay varies from student to student and

subject to subject. If you begin your essay with four or five footnotes per page and then only haveone footnote for the next six pages, then something is amiss. You are probably not documenting

something that does need to be documented. Of course, if you insert a footnote every other

sentence, then you may be overdoing it. One technique I've seen is for students to footnote every

paragraph. In other words, there is a footnote either at the beginning or end of the paragraph. This

technique is only proper if and only if the note refers to the information in the paragraph as a whole.

There is, of course, no set number of footnotes to be utilized in each and every research essay you

may be called upon to write. The number of footnotes will ultimately depend on the nature of your

subject. However, for those of you who like numbers, a twenty-five page research essay could



contain anywhere between 20 and 75 footnotes. Again, it all depends on the subject.

Should you use footnotes or endnotes? Your decision depends on the stylistic format established by

your instructor. There's nothing wrong with endnotes. In fact, they make for an easier read because

your reader's eyes are not constantly shifting between the text and the bottom of the page. Of

course, flipping between pages of text and pages of endnotes is tiring as well. The bottom line is this

use what your professor prefers. And remember the cardinal rule: whatever style you have been

asked to use, stick to it. Consistency is everything.

The footnote number, in superscript, should be placed at the end of the sentence or quotation.

There will come a time, however, when you need to insert two notes within the same sentence. This

is perfectly acceptable practice. It all depends on the nature of the thing being footnoted. It goes

without saying that your footnotes must be numbered consecutively from beginning to end. Such a

task is made easy with a word processor. Remove or add a footnote (or even 12!) and your

numbering is adjusted automatically.

The proper format of the footnote should follow the style manual (Turabian, MLA, Chicago, APA)

which your instructor suggests you use. If he does not specify a style manual, then obtain one at

your library or at the bookstore and keep it near you as you type up the final draft. Again, rememberto maintain consistency.

.1 Final Thoughts -- About Your Instructor

It goes without saying that your instructor is a human being and ought to be treated as such. This

much said, you will find that the majority of your instructors, for one reason or another, do not fit

this description. They seem to have other things on their mind---departmental meetings, the publish

or perish mental framework, the fact that they have to teach three courses per semester, personal

problems. The list goes on and on. In other words, these professors do not want you to know thatthey are human beings. For many instructors, students are little more than a hindrance to their more

important work, the work which gets them noticed and hopefully, a job at a more prestigious

university. These instructors are not bad sorts of people. They just seem to have forgotten what

teaching history is all about. It's just my opinion.

I've got to admit, in four years as an undergraduate and five in graduate school (a total of 70 classes

with perhaps 40 professors), I probably encountered no more than a handful of professors who

really cared about their students. These are the special instructors, the ones who change the lives of

their students. They're not teaching for the prestige or the money (God forbid!). Rather, they teach

because they love to teach. And that, for me, is what makes a good professor.

Let's look at just a few examples.

Scenario 1: You walk into your Western Civilization I class and there might be three hundred

people in the room. The professor stands rigid, hiding behind the podium. He reads his lectures

automatically, no weight given to one thing or another. He's just going through the motions. He

needs to complete a task oblivious to the fact that the task might have some intrinsic merit. You

leave the room 90 minutes later having slept, doodled and learned nothing. You attend the section

meeting with your teaching assistant and 30 of your classmates and find that your TA seems to care





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