Historical method
techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the past
The historical method are the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write history.
Guidelines
changeFollowing Garraghan (in: A Guide to Historical Method, 168) puts six questions that should be answered as minimal standard for a sound historical method:
- When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
- Where was it produced (localization)?
- By whom was it produced (authorship)?
- From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
- In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
- What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?
References
change- Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method, Fordham University Press: New York (1946). ISBN 0-8371-7132-6.
- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method, Alfred A. Knopf: New York (1950). ISBN 0-394-30215-X.
- Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods, Cornell University Press: Ithaca (2001). ISBN 0-8014-8560-6.
- C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions, Cambridge University Press: New York (1984). ISBN 0-521-31830-0.
- R. J. Shafer, A Guide to Historical Method, The Dorsey Press: Illinois (1974). ISBN 0-534-10825-3.
Related pages
changeOther websites
change- Historical Sources Online by Marc Comtois
- Philosophy of History Archived 2005-09-05 at the Wayback Machine by Paul Newall
- The Historian's Sources, online lesson by the Library of Congress
- Federal Rules of Evidence in United States law