Hardhat History

Prof. Isern’s Pages for Historical Research & Writing

Copyright 2003-4-5 Tom Isern

This is a place to learn about how to do historical research and how to write History. It exists mainly to serve Prof. Isern’s students at North Dakota State University, undergraduate and graduate, in their development as historical scholars. All historians are welcome, however.

There is no physical space for Hardhat History. It is a virtual laboratory. And like any construction site, it’s not a pretty place, as it consists mostly of web pages composed in Word and others written in PowerPoint, packed with textual slides. It’s a lab, not a lounge. The lab has four main rooms.

In each room you will find tutorial lessons that were composed in PowerPoint and saved as web pages. When you go to one of these links, the lesson opens in frames. Look down way to the lower right, and you will find the “Full Screen Slide Show” icon. Click on this, and as the lesson opens up full-screen, the sound will activate, as it will with each slide advance. When you hear the sound of aboriginal sticks, that’s a signal to advance to the next slide by left-clicking the mouse. If you want to repeat the sound for any slide, just click on the sound icon.

Going to the Source: A Room for Learning How to Do Historical Research This room of Hardhat History teaches historians to do research. It is where you learn how to conduct original research in primary sources, research that goes beyond what we already know and makes a contribution to knowledge.
Tutorials – PowerPoint Files
1. Primary and Secondary Sources Historians do research in primary sources; they produce secondary writing. Both types of texts are important, and the distinction between the two is not always clear.	2. Grounding Your Research However original or esoteric your topic, it relates in some way to the body of historical literature extant. You need to know what other historians have done on your subject.	3. Breaking New Ground As a professional historian, you don’t just absorb and recast what others have done. You work on the frontier of knowledge and make new discoveries. Here’s an approach that will get you to the sources on the frontier of knowledge.	4. Taking Prisoners Once you get into the rich primary sources, you need to capture the information to use in your paper. Careful note-taking and organization of research materials will make writing a lot easier.
Template for a Research Bibliography (Word doc)

The Architecture of the Essay: A Room for Learning How to Design a Historical Essay This room of Hardhat History teaches historians how to organize a paper, a historical essay. It is where you learn the parts of the essay and how to fit them together.
Tutorials – PowerPoint Files
1. Narrative, Description, and Exposition Narrative, description, and exposition are the three elements of historical writing. The organization of your essay should accommodate all, but likely will emphasize one over the others.	2. Blueprint for the Essay There is a template for paper-writing that will save you a lot of grief as you seek to organize your material. Use it.	3. The Introduction The introduction should capture the reader’s interest and then state a thesis. Here’s how.	4. The Body After providing some background, you go on to develop and support your thesis in the body of the paper. Here’s where organization is crucial.	5. The Conclusion The conclusion should confirm the thesis; situate your findings in relation to those of other historians; and assess the significance of the findings. Most conclusions are lame. Here’s how to write a good one.
Generic Outline for a Historical Essay

The Rhetoric of History: A Room for Learning How to Write History This room of Hardhat History teaches historians how to write History, focusing on matters of style. It is where you learn to write papers that not only meet the expectations of the historical profession but also engage readers.
Tutorials – PowerPoint Files
1. Write in the Active Voice The active voice puts life into your writing and makes it more precise. As a historian, you should write habitually in the active voice.	2. Quotation, Paraphrase, and Composition Historians don’t just make things up. The material comes from somewhere. Here’s how to make something new from borrowed material.	3. Living in the Past Time is a defining parameter of History. Accounting for time requires a certain rhetoric peculiar to historical writing.	4. Point of View Point of view means who is telling the story, and what sort of view that person has. Historians have definite ideas about point of view, but there is some room for variation.	5. Parallel Construction Parallel construction is a rhetorical technique that promotes clarity and conciseness. It’s hard to explain, but easy to illustrate with examples.	6. Nouning and Verbing Language is a living thing, but historians, as you might expect, are conservative about it. It’s best to keep language within the conventions, so that it doesn’t distract from your story.

Credit Where Credit Is Due: A Room for Learning How to Cite and Credit Sources This room of Hardhat History teaches historians to give proper credit to their sources. It deals mainly with annotation, that is, the composition and use of notes.
Tutorials – PowerPoint Files
1. Ethics and Folkways of Citation Historians do research in primary sources; they produce secondary writing. Both types of texts are important, and the distinction between the two is not always clear.	2. Notes Notes (endnotes or footnotes) are what historians use to specify where information came from that they use in their text. Prepare yourselves to be inducted into the mysteries of the multiple-citation note.		3. Bibliography Some pieces of historical writing require not only notes but also a bibliography, a list of sources appended to the text.
Examples of Note Form Books Periodical Articles Theses and Dissertations Government Documents Oral Interviews Newspapers Manuscripts		Other Examples of Citation Practice Notes at the Back Extreme Citation – A Monster Multiple Citation Annotation Using Word
Remember, the ultimate authority in form of notes is the Chicago Manual of Style. In the Senior Seminar we use what the manual calls the "documentary-note" or "humanities style." We call the annotation just "notes," not "footnotes," because we put them not at the bottom of a page of text, but in a group at the back of the paper.

Tom Isern / NDSU History Department