Case Study: The Historian's Craft and Historical Investigation
Case Study: The Historian's Craft and Historical Investigation tests independent inquiry: framing a question, selecting and evaluating sources, and reflecting on your own process. The research study report rewards a narrow, evidence-based project, not a broad narrative.
Core rules
- Start with a research question that can be answered with available sources. 'Why did a local war memorial omit certain names?' is stronger than 'The First World War'.
- State a hypothesis or line of argument, then test it rather than illustrate it.
- Evaluate sources by provenance, purpose, audience, genre, date, bias and usefulness for the specific question. Include at least one contemporary and one later source where possible.
- Keep a bibliography and footnotes; distinguish quotation from paraphrase.
- Review the process: what you changed, what limited you, what you would do differently.
Worked example
Question: 'How did commemoration of the 1916 Rising in one Dublin district change between 1916 and 1966?' Sources: Bureau of Military History witness statements (collected 1947–57), local newspapers, council minutes, photographs and an oral history interview. Reasoning: the witness statements are rich on participants' motives but shaped by later memory and the political climate of collection; newspapers show public language but reflect editorial lines; council minutes reveal official decisions. Triangulate: where all three converge on a date or decision, confidence rises. The argument should explain change and continuity with evidence, and acknowledge silences.
Traps
- Topic too broad to investigate in the word limit.
- No question, only a description.
- Web-only sources without provenance.
- Listing sources without evaluating them.
- Omitting the review of process.