Historical Thinking

History is a process of finding evidence, interpreting it, and organizing findings into arguments for debate. The narratives that we read are born from a lengthy exchange of ideas among people who dedicate their lives to understanding more about the past for our benefit.

The following resources provide ways to write arguments through the conventions historians use to understand what happened in the past. Although this is a limited list of skills (causation, comparison, contextualization, and change), the impact of employing the following strategies will help you realize sound historical arguments.

Signal Words for Comparison

different from, the same as, as well as, compared to, however, as well as, is similar to, instead, in the same way, on the other hand, just like, whereas, have in common, although, contrary to

Signal Words for Causation

because of, due to, as a result of, since, thanks to, the reason for, therefore, which means, resulting in, on account of, due to the fact that, consequently, by virtue of, for this reason, hence, accordingly, If ... then, this led to

Events don't happen in a vacuum. They happen in different places, under a variety of culturally significant conditions. Contextualization is about finding the significance of other things happened at the same time of the event you are studying.

Let's think about the Alien and Sedition acts. Were the Federalists more concerned about the threats to the safety of the U.S. citizens? Or was more about the nature of the French immigrants who were known supporters of the Democratic-Republicans.

Signal Words for Change (and time)

now, lately, already, little by little, at the same time, after awhile, once, during, innovation, switch, replace, amend, modify, refine, revise, exchange, interchange