Questions? A whole website on asking questions? It may seem a bit much, but this site aims to "decode" the discipline of history, to help you recognize and understand how historians think and work. Developing the ability to ask good historical research questions is a crucial aspect of historical thinking, but it's not the only one that you'll be practicing as you go through the site. Because it turns out you can't possibly develop good questions if you're not also practicing lots of other historical thinking skills. So along the way, you'll also be analyzing primary sources; reading sources in context; considering multiple perspectives to understand the past; assessing causality; and trying to understand people from the past in the context of their own times. Who knew that focusing on questions could uncover so many disciplinary processes?
Let's start with the difference between a subject, a topic, and a research question. Take a minute and think about how you would define them. Click the arrow when you've got your answer.
Subject:
Your subject is a broad category of inquiry. Subjects are big and broad. Want to see how broad? Check out the Library of Congress subject headings. The subjects are things like “Russia” or “Islam," or perhaps World War II History--United States.
Topic:
A topic is a more focused issue within a broad subject. If the subject is the United States in World War II, a topic within that sweeping category might be American war propaganda, or women industrial workers, or—and the topic used as an example in this website—the debate between interventionists and anti-interventionists about whether the United States should aid Britain between 1939 and 1941.
Research Question/Problem:
A research question reflects a further narrowing of your topic. It’s the problem or issue related to the topic that you plan to explore with your research. It’s the lode star that will guide your research and help you come up with an argument. No question, no answer, no argument. Simple.
Now watch the film and take the short quiz!