How to Read a History Essay Introduction

One of the well-nigh mutual questions students enquire their tutors is:how much should I read for this assignment? Inevitably, in that location is no satisfactory answer. Information technology depends on how wide the topic is, how in-depth yous're asked to get and plenty else also. Equally a headline effigy I tend to recommend 8-12 texts is about the right amount for a History essay. But that'south a crude guideline. To brand sure yous're reading what y'all need for your essay y'all need to brand sure yous've covered your bases – this is less near how much and more about what to read. This is the first building block of writing a academy essay, yet explicitly discussing the different types of readings out at that place very much depends being lucky enough to go a expert tutor. And then allow's put that right!

In that location are four key kinds of texts you'll be asked to read during a History degree. Making sure y'all've read the right things when preparing an essay is spring to be hit-and-miss unless you know which of these to seek out. And those iv are:

• Textbooks and general histories. While mutual at school and at university in about subjects, in that location are actually rather few textbooks for History students in British universities. What you find more than often are general histories, introducing readers to a broad brush stroke account of an historical topic or theme. Some of the kickoff readings History students volition be set are chapters from Eric Hobsbawm'southward classic Historic period of…serial of full general histories of Europe since the late eighteenth century. Textbooks might be more than convenient than general histories, just they basically play the same function equally the starting place for reading upwardly on a topic. Something to lookout man out for here is the blurred line between scholarly general histories and popular historieswritten for a not-bookish audition. Both will cover key events, but the latter will but sometimes consider themes or issues and rarely debates in whatsoever useful way, existence more than concerned with telling a good story.
• Monographs. Most students go far at academy never having heard the word 'monograph', and bizarrely information technology's rare for tutors to simply tell them in the get-go few weeks that this is the name given to a book, normally written by one author, presenting original research into a discreet topic. Helpfully they usually have names that tell you what, where and when the volume is about – something likeBritish Foreign Policy under the Macmillan Regime, 1957-63 – as either title or subtitle. If it's specifically on the topic you're writing an essay on you'll at least desire to accept a quick look to exist aware what the main argument of the book is. Monographs typically include a useful summary of the literature on the topic either as a department of the get-go chapter or as the whole 2nd affiliate. Towards the end of the first chapter there's too unremarkably a helpful summary of the balance of the book, giving a judgement or two on each chapter, which can guide you lot to the sections of the book relevant to your essay question.
• Journal manufactures. These are the essays academics write, usually presenting their ain original research in a similar style to monographs. There won't ordinarily be any theme linking the articles in an issue of a journal and academics will only occasionally write more than than once for the same journal. What links them is very broad – time and identify (as is the case forTwentieth Century British History) or thematic/conceptual focus (for caseSocial History of Medicine). Almost journals now include curt abstracts of each article, which you can use to apace decide if y'all demand to take a quick await, sit down for a proper read, or move on and non waste matter your fourth dimension.
• Edited collections. These are books made up of chapters that are quite like to periodical articles. They volition be past different authors, tin be on quite different topics, often putting forward different, sometimes competing, ideas or arguments. Dissimilar a journal though, there will be something linking them. The topic of the book overall means they'll either be presenting new research on different aspects of the same topic (something likeThe Eugenics Motility in Modern America and Europe) or work on different topics sharing some mutual theme or conceptual approach (perhapsSocial Histories of Disability and Deformity). What pulls these diverse chapters together, in any good edited collection, is an introductory chapter by the editor(s) giving an overview of what'southward previously been written in this area and explaining how these essays fit together and say something new. Sometimes merely a item chapter will be relevant, but if the volume as a whole is and then the opening affiliate will probably be essential reading for you.

The other types of readings y'all'll be set in a History degree really autumn into two categories.

• All other writings by historians. This could literally be anything, merely a newspaper article or a blog post are the most common. It's rapidly existence realised that blogging has become an of import space for sharing insights from academic research, and so historians' blogs are likely to become set readings more than and more than. Occasionally you lot'll be able to utilise some writings past academics other than historians. These tin be useful, so long as you're enlightened they may frame the topic in a different mode: asking dissimilar questions, prioritising detail theories or types of bear witness. If information technology'due south not written past an bookish or other skilful (very common in online writing) it'southward unlikely to be an appropriate text to use, unless it falls into the final category…
• Primary sources. Most undergraduate essays won't crave the use of primary sources, unless the assignment task is specifically to analyse a detail document (advice on which you'll find here). That said, in that location's nothing wrong with using primary sources if relevant. Merely call up they are the prove used to support your point, don't mix that up with the interpretations, explanations and debates y'all'll find in the secondary sources written by historians and other scholars.

In one case we know what the types of readings out there are, we can plow this into a bones strategy for reading to gear up an essay. I'll be turning to this in my next post…

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Source: https://gcgosling.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/reading1/

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