The Research Process

What is the research/writing process followed by historians?

After researching a topic by reading and interpreting primary sources (whether that is documents, art works, architecture), historians write up their conclusions about the subject area. They do so to share their findings and create a lasting record of their thinking. This can take many forms – in history the most common is a journal article or a “monograph” (i.e. a book-length study on a single topic). In some ways, a monograph can be seen as a long version of a journal article. It may be a revised version of a number of previously-written journal articles which are then rewritten and reworked to cover a large topic comprehensively.

Journal articles most often share primary source research. However, they can also be review articles, in which a piece of research, usually a book or a number of recent publications in the case of history, is reviewed by an independent expert.

For a journal involving primary source research, the work process is as follows:

1. The research process often begins with a hunch – an idea that often comes from working on unrelated projects that suggest new directions for research

a. New directions can arise from historians thinking about known sources in a new way (e.g. they look at legal texts which were previously only used to understand political history in order to now understand social structures, gender, and sexuality). Or research allows people to redefine the value of a source (i.e. that what seemed like a seventh-century source was actually forged in the 13th century; or a twelfth-century manuscript is actually a faithful copy of a second-century work).

b. New directions can also arise from new sources. New medieval sources are sometime (very rarely!) discovered (i.e. hidden in the walls of monastery or in a bricked-over Cairo storeroom). In recent years, new texts and art work are coming to light through technical means (such as multi-spectral photography that reveals erased texts). More often known written sources in libraries/ archives will not have been properly catalogued and so historians might “rediscover” an unknown text in a (mostly) well-studied manuscript.

2. The hunch leads the historian to consult sources – initially secondary sources to see if and what other people have thought and written about the subject. If a body of research exist, secondary sources orient the historian to a subject area, but also represent the first area of historical criticism. We must read other historians critically, so that we are aware of their failings as well as their strengths. Existing secondary sources also provide the historian with hints of what primary sources exist and where they can be consulted.

3. Historians consult original primary sources in archives, libraries and other repositories (in person and increasingly now, online). Many medieval primary sources have also been “edited” which means that they have been transcribed (copied into modern type with modern punctuation) and printed (and maybe put online). They provide historians with the fundamental data for their conclusions about the subject being researched.

4. Historical thinking requires investigation. Most often, historical investigation of the medieval period takes the form of reading – always in ancient languages, whether Sogdian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Old French, etc.. Usually therefore this stage requires translation. When reading formulaic legal documents this can be quick; when dealing with complex philosophical and theological texts, it is not. The biggest hurdle to conducting primary source inquiry is often knowledge of languages and access to translations.

5. Even once read, primary sources require considerable analysis. We might understand the words, but not the meaning – it is hard to catch humour, medieval texts lack punctuation for the most part, and they often make difficult allusions or complex metaphors which are obscure to the modern reader. These need to be understood before meaning can be properly deciphered.

6. Primary sources also need to be understood in comparison and in their context – how do they relate to one another, how are texts in discussion with each other. Historians thus try to figure out the source according to norms for the time period (this could be understanding how dating systems work or understand typical artistic techniques).

7. At this stage the historian begins to try to establish general conclusions. Historians might gather loads of data from primary sources, but they tend to only make sense of the whole once they start to write up their findings.

8. Their conclusions need to be tested, however. So usually the first stage is to present their initial conclusions at an academic conference – usually giving talks of about 15-30 minutes laying out their evidence and conclusions. The audience of specialists give feedback: suggesting additional avenues to take, other evidence to examine, new secondary studies to incorporate and even basic errors they may have made (which happen all the time!).

9. Incorporating this feedback, the historian usually writes up a detailed account of their findings – usually first in an “article” (somewhere between 5,000-20,000 words). Historians typically write a draft which they circulate among their friends and colleagues for suggestions to improve it before submitting it to a historical journal.

10. When the article is deemed “complete”, the historian will submit it to a journal. The article will be read by a submissions editor who will send it out for “peer review”. A journal article is therefore often called a peer-reviewed article, or a scholarly research article. An example of which is on the next page.

What is peer review?

Peer review refers to articles that have been critiqued by a panel of experts (usually at least two). Articles are judged, ideally anonymously (known as blind peer review), as to their originality, their significance, their awareness of historiography and historical context, and their overall quality. The reviewers might be open to your interpretation or might be opposed. Their role is to test your conclusions and make clear assumptions (correct or otherwise) that may not have been sufficiently supported.