The Historiographical Essay Criteria june18 (3) Essays -

The Historiographical Essay: G uidelines and Requirements A historiographical essay is one in which the essayist analyzes works of history in terms of their intent, success, and failure as works of history according to accepted disciplinary criteria. For the purposes of my courses, I have adapted five criteria long used by a scholarly journal in its instructions to those who reviewed new books for that journal. These are the criteria which you must understand and use for success in this part of your coursework: 1. The author's purpose: what did the work's author intend and how successful was the author in fulfilling that intention? If your assignment calls for reviewing several authors , all working on one subject, how useful was the author's work in terms of the subject? If your assignment calls for reviewing two or more authors, each working on a different subject, how useful was the author's work in terms of that particular subject? 2. The author's sources: did the author make good use of adequate sources? To support your conclusion in this regard, please list the types of sources the author used (such a list might be as follows: a broad range of secondary sources, correspondence, periodical accounts from the time, memoirs of participants, contemporary government reports). The issue of an adequate source has to do with sources which make sense in terms of what the historian is arguing; if, for example, s/he is writing about the intentions of policymakers or of slaves, s/he should have correspondence from those policymakers or memoirs or oral history or police records reflecting the ideas of the slaves. We want the historian to have gotten as close to the events and participants as the available evidence will allow. That is why we tend to prefer primary sources to secondary sources. Generally, a primary source is one close to the reality at issue, such as contemporary official documents, publications, and (official or private) correspondence, or eye-witness or participant accounts. Generally, a secondary source is an analysis and/or narrative based on primary sources, such as a study written after the events took place by a non-participant, such as a scholarly monograph or articl e. For example, what you will be reading as you do your work on this paper are secondary sources. 3. The author's bias: did the author's inevitable prejudices clearly distort the account and analysis, or did the author successfully present a reasonably balanced work of scholarship? This is a controversial area in academic circles today, because few believe objectivity is possible. However, most practicing historians believe it is important to approximate objectivity through a dispassionate, reasoned argument and analysis based on primary-source evidence and a careful sifting of secondary sources. We tend to criticize colleagues who fail in this regard. Bias might be thought of in two different forms: bias by omission (in which the historian through poor research fails to examine all the evidence relevant to the issue) and bias by commission (in which the historian attempts to sway the reader by presenting evidence which only supports his/her position, or by presenting evidence from various points of view but in a way which favors his/her position, or, again, by reaching conc lusions based on his/her position without regard to evidence to the contrary). Often, a poor historian will mingle the two kinds of bias . Many historians believe that a historian who makes his/her personal position obvious but nonetheless clearly tries to present the evidence in a balanced fashion cannot be said to have failed; others continue to maintain that the tone and presentation of the historian should suggest a dispassionate, non-partisan approach. Your task is to decide if you can detect one or more biases on the part of the historian and if the bias in question has undermined the credibility of the historian's work. This task is the critical one. If you cannot determine a bias, you must at least state as much, so that it is clear that you reviewed the author's work with this in mind. 4. The author's contribution . If you are reviewing a number of works on the same subject, d oes the work you are discussing provide readers with something important and