- Website home
- » Browse the Catalog
- » The Princeton guide to historical research
The Princeton guide to historical research
Author
Publisher
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Publication Date
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Language
English
Description
Loading Description...
Table of Contents
From the Book
Introduction: History is for everyone
Part I: Definitions
Defining history
History is the study of people and the choices they made
History is a means to understand today's world
History combines storytelling and analysis
History is an ongoing debate
Historians' ethics
Curiosity
Accuracy
Judgement
Empathy
Gratitude
Truth
Part II: Questions
Asking questions
Wonder
Autobiography
Everything has a history
Narrative expansion
From the source
Public history
Research agenda
Questions
Factual questions
Interpretive questions
Dialectics
Opposing forces
Internal contradictions
Competing priorities
Determining factors
Hidden or contested meanings
Before and after
Dialectics create questions, not answers
Research design
Scope
Copy other works
History big and small
Pick your people
Add and subtract
Narrative versus thematic schemes
Periodization
Beginnings
Endings
Pace
The balky time machine
Geography
National
Local and regional
Transnational and global
Comparative
Historiography
What is new about your approach?
Are you working in a specific theoretical tradition?
What have others written?
Are others working on it?
What might your critics say?
Proposal
Part III: Sources
Sources: An introduction
Primary versus secondary sources
Balancing your use of secondary sources
Sets of sources
Sources as records of the powerful
No source speaks for itself
Languages and specialized reading
Choose sources that you love
Texts as sources
First-person accounts
Diaries
Letters
Memoirs
Interviews
Workaday documents
Periodicals
Newspapers
Magazines
Specialized periodicals
Government documents
Criminal investigations and trials
Censuses
Official reports
Letters and petitions
Institutional records
Scholarship
Fiction
Words
Big data
Sources beyond traditional texts
Numbers
Maps
Images
Portraits
Motion pictures and recordings
Artifacts
Buildings and plans
Places
Finding sources
The working bibliography
The open web
Limits of the open web
Bibliographic databases
Full-text databases
Libraries
Oral history
Archival research
What is an archive?
Archives and access
Workings in archives
Read the finding aid
Follow the rules
Work with archivists
Research with digital photography
Types of cameras
How much to shoot?
Managing expectations
Interpreting sources
Pattern recognition
Worldview
Duck, duck, goose
Critical reading
Agenda
Credibility
Nuance
Context
Change
Causation
Part IV: Projects
Project management
Goals of project management
Avoid catastrophe
Complete tasks-ideally just once, and in the right order
Maintain momentum
Tools of the trade
Hardware
Kinds of software
Word processors
Means of entry
Productivity
A good day's work
Word count is your friend
Managing research assistants
Research diary
When to stop
Taking notes
Goals
Note-taking as mining
Note-taking as assembly
The good-enough note
Identify the source, so you can go back and consult if needed
Distinguish others' words and ideas from your own
Allow sorting and retrieval of related pieces of information
Provide the right level of detail
Simple tools for notes
Notebooks and index cards
Word processors for note-taking
Plain text and markdown
Database software
Reference managers
Note-taking apps
Relational databases
Spreadsheets
Specialized tools
Timelines
Glossaries and alphabetical lists
Image catalogs
Mapping
Other specialized formats
The working draft
Organization
Scale
The foundational five-paragraph essay
Variants: The ten- and thirty-page papers
Introductions
Ledes
Thesis statement
Historiography
Body
Sections
Background
Sections as independent essays
Topic sentences
Conclusions
Answering questions
Invisible bullet points
The perils of policy prescriptions
Outlines
A model (T) outline
Flexibility
Part V: Stories
Storytelling
Characters
Protagonist
Antagonist
Witnesses
Bit players
Chorus
Plots
The shape of the story
The controlling idea
Events
Alchemy: Turning sources to stories
Chronology
Turning points
Agones
Resolution
Counterfactuals
Like a (realist) novel
Scene
Dialogue
Point of view
Symbolic details
Combinations
Speculation
Style
Words
Is your jargon really necessary?
Defining terms
Word choice as analysis
Period vocabulary or anachronism?
Quotation
Nontextual information
Integrate images into your story
Put numbers in context
Summarize data in tables and graphs
Citation
Why we cite
Citation styles
Rhetorical devices
Active verbs
People as subjects
Metaphors
Signposting
Questions
First person
Titles
Revision
Putting it aside
Reverse outlining
Auditing your word budget
Writing for the ear
Cuts
Publication
Playing with others
Conferences
Social media
Coauthorship
Peer review
Tough, fair, and encouraging
Manuscript and book reviews
Print
Journal articles
Book chapters
Books
Public engagement
Websites and social media
Museums and historic sites
Press appearances and op-eds
Law and policy
Graphic history, movies, and Broadway musicals
Letting go.
Excerpt
Loading Excerpt...
Author Notes
Loading Author Notes...
More Details
Contributors
ISBN
9780691198224
9781666103434
9780691210964
9781666103434
9780691210964
UPC
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Staff View
Loading Staff View.