HIS 401: Historical Research and Writing (Spring 2021): Introduction

Explore the Spring 2020 Guide

Research in history involves developing an understanding of the past through the examination and interpretation of evidence. Evidence may exist in the form of texts, physical remains of historic sites, recorded data, pictures, maps, artifacts, and so on. The historian’s job is to find evidence, analyze its content and biases, corroborate it with further evidence, and use that evidence to develop an interpretation of past events that holds some significance for the present.

Historians use libraries to:

• Locate primary sources (first-hand information such as diaries, letters, and original documents) for evidence
• Find secondary sources (historians’ interpretations and analyses of historical evidence)
• Verify factual material as inconsistencies arise

Source
Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fifth Edition, by Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister, Bedford/St. Martin, 2010

Historical research relies on a wide variety of sources, both primary and secondary including unpublished material. 

Primary Sources

• Eyewitness accounts of events
• Can be oral or written testimony
• Found in public records & legal documents, minutes of meetings, corporate records, recordings, letters, diaries, journals, drawings.
• Located in university archives, libraries or privately run collections such as local historical society.

Secondary Sources

• Can be oral or written
• Secondhand accounts of events
• Found in textbooks, encyclopedias, journal articles, newspapers, biographies and other media such as films or tape recordings.