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Section Overview
Section Overview
In this section you will reflect on what undertaking this investigation taught you about the methods used by historians and the challenges or limitations that their methods present.
It is essential to make direct connections between your investigation and the work of historians more generally.
Your reflection should be about 400 words long and should address 3-4 methods/challenges/limitations.
Mark Scheme
Mark Scheme
0
The work does not reach a standard described by the descriptors below.
1-2
The reflection contains some discussion of what the investigation highlighted to the student about the methods used by the historian.
The reflection demonstrates little awareness of the challenges facing the historian and/or the limitations of the methods used by the historian.
The connection between the reflection and the rest of the investigation is implied, but is not explicit.
3-4
The reflection is clearly focused on what the investigation highlighted to the student about the methods used by the historian
The reflection demonstrates clear awareness of challenges facing the historian and/or limitations of the methods used by the historian.
There is a clear and explicit connection between the reflection and the rest of the investigation.
Questions to Consider
Questions to Consider
If you are struggling to write your reflection, here are some questions to consider. IF YOU USE QUESTIONS FROM THIS LIST, CHOOSE NO MORE THAN THREE TO ADDRESS.
Who writes history? What motivates their writing?
Why are some events written about more than others? What makes an event worthy of being part of the historical record?
How can the "facts" differ? For example, some textbooks have different death counts for the same battle.
What is the role of the historian?
How can the reliability of sources be evaluated?
How do historians keep the scope of their investigations manageable?
If historians are able to disagree so easily, does that mean that there is no such thing as historical truth?
Why do historians' accounts of the past keep changing?
Whose version of history is right?
Is it possible, or advisable, to describe historical events in an unbiased way?
What are the challenges facing the historian? How do they differ from the challenges facing those in a different field?
Avoid these common mistakes
Avoid these common mistakes
Not addressing the methods used by historians and the challenges/limitations of their work
Writing about your personal challenges including procrastination
Referring a list of potential questions to guide your thinking and trying to answer them all without depth or regard for whether the question fits your own investigation
Writing a conclusion to your investigation rather than a reflection on the process
Not saving enough words to provide a solid reflection
Resources
Resources
Check out the links below to learn more about the work historians do and the challenges that they face.
From the National Council on Public History
From the American Historical Association
From Alpha History
From the Society of Education
Student Sample #1
Student Sample #1
Section III: Reflection
This investigation highlighted for me the strengths and weaknesses of different types of
sources, and the value to a historian of combining the insights from sources of various forms.
Since my research question evaluated a change in legal policy, the most authoritative primary
sources were the laws in question; both the eighteenth amendment itself and the state laws
preceding it. These were valuable as they delineated both the law after the ratification of the
amendment, and in certain regions before the amendment. But even binding, primary
documents like these leave the historian with several challenges and outright limitations, as they
do not always, in themselves, explain the context of their creation and cannot, in themselves,
describe how they were received and obeyed.
One way in which I supplemented the content of these laws was with Washnock’s and
Okamoto’s secondary accounts of the circumstances around the passage of these laws,
including loopholes, and effects of federal policy, which drastically reduced the genuine effect of
these laws. While these sources could not replace the accuracy and specificity of the laws
themselves, they grounded the contents of these laws in their historical context.
Numerical data is another valuable tool for the historian, and in this investigation I
utilized U.S. Census population data to contextualize the spread of anti-liquor laws by
quantifying the affected population. Furthermore, I borrowed from the numerical analysis of Du
Pont and Manwell to enumerate how much of the country had gone dry before 1919. Like the
other indirect sources, Manwell’s and Du Pont’s summary of the existing laws are inherently
reductive, and accurate understanding or argumentation could not be achieved alone by either
their quantitative argument or the direct qualitative analysis of a sample of state laws.
This leaves the historian to synthesize a deeper understanding of the past from the
reorganization and recombination of knowledge already preserved within either primary artifacts
and documents or secondary sources. I was fortunate the topic of this investigation was
well-preserved and written about, although state prohibition laws for several states proved
nearly impossible to locate firsthand. When such sources are truly lost, they cannot be
reconstructed after the fact and this gap in the collective knowledge of historians will persist
indefinitely unless it is rediscovered after being preserved elsewhere. In contrast to the role of
mathematicians and scientists who can create knowledge ex nihilo or through practical
experimentation, the historian must be organized and guardian to what knowledge is passed
down to them.
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