Historians'' Expectations of You
You can assume two things about your Carolina history
instructors. First, they are
themselves scholars of history. Second, they expect
you to engage in the
practice of history. In other words, they frequently want you to use
information to make an
educated guess about some bygone event, era, or phenomenon.
You probably know how to guess about the past. High school history exams and various nameless standardized tests often encourage students to guess. For example:
1. The hula hoop was invented in
a) 1650
b) 1865
c) 1968
d) none of the above
2. True or false: Velveeta cheese was first used to prevent osteoperosis on British merchant ships.
In academia, however, guessing is not enough. As they evaluate assignments, history
instructors look for evidence that students:
know about the past, and can
think about the past.
Why? Because this is exactly what they themselves do.
Historians know about the past because they look at what relics have trickled down through the ages. These relics of past civilizations are called primary sources. For some periods and cultures (20th century America, for example), there are
tons of primary sources - political documents, newspapers, teeny-boppers'' diaries, posters, high school year books, tax returns, tape-recorded phone conversations, etc. For other cultures, however, historians have very few clues to work with; that''s one reason we know so little about the fate of the Roanoke settlers or the Aztec Indians.
Gathering these clues, however, is only part of historians'' work. They also consult other historians'' ideas about a particular question or culture. These are called secondary sources, and include textbooks, monographs and scholarly articles Then, once they''ve studied both primary and secondary sources, historians
think. Ideally, after thinking for a while, they come up with a story to link together all these bits of information - an
interpretation (read: educated guess) which answers a question about some past event or phenomenon.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Except when two historians using different sources come up with contradictory answers to the same question. Or if one historian believes another has bumbled around trying to answer an insignificant question. Even worse, what if two historians ask the same question and use the same sources but still come up with different answers? This happens pretty regularly in history and can lead to heated debates, complete with name-calling and mudslinging. Even today, for example, historians still can''t agree on the extent of apocalyptic panic surrounding the year 1000!
To avoid unnecessary disagreements and survive legitimate debates, good historians explain
why their question is important, exactly
what sources they found, and how they analyzed them to reach a particular interpretation. In other words, they prove that both their approach and answers are valid and significant. This is why historical texts have so many footnotes. It''s also why history instructors put so much emphasis on
how you write your paper. In order to evaluate the quality of your answer to a historical question, they need to know not only the "facts," but also:
why your question is significant
where you got your facts
how you engaged and organized them to make your point
To sum up: Unlike all but the best (i.e., toughest) high school teachers, most UNC history instructors will expect you to
both know information and interpret (think about) it to answer a question about the past. Your hard-won ability to name all the governors of Idaho in chronological order will mean little unless you can show why and how that chronology is significant.