TheHistoricalMethod:

Or, how historians “do history”

Step 1: Pick a subject• professional historians focus on one

particular time, place and topic• Examples:

– Peruvian Military History– Ancient Roman Economic History– Song Dynasty Social History

• Professional historians devote their entire careers to such specific subjects

Step 2: Develop a Research Question

• Can’t simply start studying a subject• Instead, they create a research question about that

subject• Examples?• Focuses the efforts of the historian• Limits the primary sources to be collected and

analyzed

Step 3: Read

• Historians read other modern historians’ books on the same subject

• Secondary sources• Prevents repetition, plagiarism• Helps locate the primary sources (in

footnotes and bibliographies)

Step 4: Gather the Primary Sources

• Those that will allow them to answer research question. Locations?– Libraries (often written documents have been

edited and published for use by historians)– Archives (places where unedited, unpublished

written documents are stored)– Archaeological sites

• Historians prefer originals or facsimiles

Sample Primary Sources• Cum divina tua mens et numen, imperator

Caesar, imperio potiretur orbis terrarum invictaque virtute cunctis hostibus stratis triumpho victoriaque tua cives gloriarentur et gentes omnes subactae tuum spectarent nutum populusque Romanus et senatus liberatus timore amplissimis tuis cogitationibus consiliisque gubernaretur, non audebam, tantis occupationibus, de architectura scripta et magnis cogitationibus explicata edere, metuens, ne non apto tempore interpellans subirem tui animi offensionem

Step 5: Authentication• Also called External Criticism• Ensures that documents meet the 3

primary source requirements– Temporal– Spatial– Relevance

Step 6: Value Assessment• a.k.a. Internal Criticism• Historians look for

– Purpose– Biases– Errors– Lies– Errors

• Know how to use primary sources when answering research question

Step 7: Answer Research Question

• Puzzle Analogy– Answer to Research Question = Puzzle– Facts from Primary Sources = Puzzle Pieces– Historian = Puzzle Solver

• Historians use inferences to– figure out how to put the puzzle together– figure out what happened in the spots with the missing

pieces• Inferencelogical conclusions drawn from premises known or

assumed to be true• Often done on note cards, binders, or some organizing method

Step 8: Write

• Very time consuming (sometimes years, or entire career)

• Get it published (good luck!)