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Techniques for Documenting with Proof or Supporting Evidence, and Related Strategies for Problem Solving By David Alderoty © 2016
Chapter 4) Technique-4, Using Historical Information, And Historical Evidence, to Write a Document
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Table of Contents, and an Outline of this Chapter The following is a hyperlink table of contents, as well as an outline of this chapter. If you left click on a blue underlined heading, the corresponding topic or subtopic will appear on your computer screen. Alternatively, you can scroll down to access the material listed in the table of contents, because this chapter is on one long webpage.
Topic 1.) Technique-4, Using Historical Evidence Subtopic, Crediting the Source, and/or Explaining How You Obtain the Historical Information Topic 2.) Three Categories of History Subtopic, What is Practical History Subtopic, The Application of Practical History to Problems and Goals Subtopic, What is Academic History Subtopic, The History of Objects, Plants and Animals Topic 3.) Carrying Out Original Historical Research by Searching the Web Subtopic, Two Examples, of Original History Research Projects Additional and Supporting Information from Web-Based Articles Additional and Supporting Information from Web-Based Videos
This E-Book Provides Additional and Supporting Information from other Authors, with Web Links
This e-book contains links to web-based articles and videos from other authors, for additional, alternative, and supporting information. The links are the blue underlined words, presented throughout this e-book. However, some of these links are to access different sections of this e-book, or material on my own websites. Quotes and paraphrases in this e-book have hyperlinks to access the original source. The quotes are presented in brown text, which is the same color of these words. (The precise text color is RGB Decimal 165, 42, 42, or Hex #a52a2a) Some of the web links in this e-book will probably fail eventually, because websites may be removed from the web, or placed on a new URL. If a link fails, use the blue underlined words as a search phrase, with www.Google.com. If the link is for a video, use www.google.com/videohp. The search will usually bring up the original website, or one or more good alternatives. |
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For those who prefer listening, as an alternative to reading, this book is recorded in an audio format.
For an audio narration of PART ONE, left click on these words (requires 13aminutes).
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Topic 1.) Technique-4, Using Historical Evidence ||| Technique-4 involves using historical evidence to support the statements in your document. However, this technique serves a dual function. Specifically when you search for historical evidence, you will also obtain the information to write the document, in most cases. Historical evidence can range from the personal history of an individual to the history of the human race. This can involve information obtained from one or more of the following:
· History books,
· Scholarly papers, and books dealing with history and/or archaeology
· Displays in museums
· Old buildings and architectural ruins
· Old artifacts, such as tools, furniture, paintings, as seen in museums
· Old publications, such as old newspapers, magazines, advertising leaflets, catalogs, photographs, and films
· Archaeological discoveries, and related interpretations, as seen in museums, and from photographs and descriptions in books and archaeology
· Public records
· The history of court cases, from law books
· Criminal history, from the state or federal records
· Personal history obtained from interviews
· From the web, which may include a search for any of the above
Subtopic, Crediting the Source, and/or Explaining How You Obtain the Historical Information ||| When your writing involves historical material, it is necessary to indicate the source, so that readers can check the validity of your statements. You can use paraphrases, and/or quotes, along with any suitable citation styles, such as APA, or MLA. When the historical material is an old building, ancient ruins, museum displays, or an archaeological find, your description coupled with photographs should be used. However, you have to credit the source, using any appropriate citation style. If the photographs are not your own, you also have to credit the source. See How to Cite a Museum Exhibit in MLA Format, and How to Cite an Image or Photograph (MLA) If there is no source to credit, you must explain how you obtained the information. This can happen if you obtained the historical information from personal interviews, or your own archaeological discoveries.
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Topic 2.) Three Categories of History ||| I am dividing history into three broad categories, which I am calling 1.) practical history, 2.) academic history, and 3.) the history of objects, plants and animals. These terms are very briefly explained below, based on the way they are used in this e-book. Practical history is used to solve a problem, obtain a goal, to assess risk, such as a medical history, criminal history, and credit history. Academic history is the conventional history that is taught in school, and the history researched by scholars and historians. This includes the study of ancient history, American history, and world history. The history of objects, plants and animals, includes the history of celestial and geological objects, living entities, and anything that does not fit into the two categories presented above. The three categories of history are explained in detail in the following three subtopics. If you want additional or supporting information from web-based sources see the following:
In Defense of Academic History Writing Gordon Wood
The value of practicing practical history
A Practical History of Financial Markets
Subtopic, What is Practical History ||| Based on the way I am using the terminology, practical history is historical information that is used to solve a problem, obtain a goal, and/or to evaluate risks. Practical history usually involves the gathering of historical information of a living individual, or currently functioning group, business, organization, or other, entity. In some cases, practical history can also involve an evaluation of the history of deceased individuals, or entities that no longer exist. The time interval involved with practical history, ranges from the birth or inception of an individual, group, business, or organization, or other entity to the end of its life. However, in some cases the time interval might be shorter than the above. This can happen when the older history is believed to be irrelevant to a specific problem, goal, or risk assessment. All of the following are examples of problems, goals, or risk assessments that can be obtained with historical information.
· Risk assessments, to reduce risks, or to evaluate the probabilities of losses or gains: This can involve avoiding financial losses or accidents by examining relevant events that previously occurred. An example is credit history, which a bank can use to estimate the risk of lending money to an individual.
· Investments, and divestments: This can involve using historical evidence to decide whether to buy or sell stock, commodities, and real estate.
· Using history to assist with problem-solving: A good example is a physician taking a medical history, to solve a medical problem.
· An effort to maximize financial gain, and/or to minimize financial losses: For example, evaluating the sales history of a product, to estimate future financial gains or losses associated with manufacturing and selling the product.
· Product design and improvement based on the history of the sales, profitability, functionality, and maintenance problems, with a current version of a product: For example, automobiles may be improved by evaluating their performance and maintenance history, which can be obtained from consumers and mechanics.
· Evaluating the history of deceased individuals: For example, to estimate life expectancy, for a specific set of life circumstances and/or environmental conditions.
· Evaluating the history of an entity that no longer exists: A good example is evaluating the malfunctioning, and maintenance history of a jet plane that was destroyed in an accident, with the goal of determining the cause of the accident.
Subtopic, The Application of Practical History to Problems and Goals ||| When faced with a problem or goal, it may be useful to evaluate the history. For a problem, this will involve an assessment of the events that may have led to the problem, and/or the factors that may have cause the problem. With this information, you may be able to alleviate or solve the problem, and prevent the problem from reoccurring. For a goal, the history might include previous failures or successes with a similar or identical goal. This might lead to better plans and strategies to obtain the goal. The gathering of historical information from people, who have dealt with similar problems and goals, might help you obtain your objective. This information can be obtained by talking to people about the specific problem or goal. This should be done with the objective of learning about the successful and unsuccessful strategies that the people used. With this information, you can avoid the unsuccessful strategies, and use the strategies that were successful. For additional and supporting information for the above subtopic see the following web-based articles:
Reducing Risk with Accurate Historical Research
Harm and risk reduction: history, theories, issues, and implications.
Model Risk of Risk Models, Jon Danielsson, and others
Subtopic, What is Academic History ||| Based on the way I am using the terminology, academic history is the study of recorded human history, which consist of systems that involve people. This also includes the events, and individuals that directly or indirectly influenced the behavior and/or structure of the systems. The term systems, includes nations, cities, societies, cultures, subcultures, governments, religions, trade unions, political parties, economic and political systems as well as any entity or organization of historical interest. The systems that are studied in academic history are usually much larger than the systems involved with practical history. Academic history is based on a time interval that starts when record keeping begins, to recently passed events. This varies with the culture and locality, because some cultures started to use writing and record keeping earlier than others did. Thus, based on my definition, history started at different points in time for each locality and culture. Unlike my definition (presented above) most sources define the start of history when record keeping began, without regard to locality or culture. This is approximately 3500 BC plus a minus 500 years. See the following:
What is the beginning of human history?
What is the beginning of human history?
Subtopic, The History of Objects, Plants and Animals ||| Based on the way am using the terminology, the history of objects, plants and animals, is the history of anything that does not fit into the categories of practical history, or academic history. This includes the history of all of the following:
· The solar system, stars, galaxies, and other celestial objects, from the time of their inception
· Planet Earth, and its geology and geography, from the time of its inception
· Plants, and animals, from the time of their evolvement
· Prehistoric plants and animals from the time of their evolvement
· The history of early human beings and related culture, before there were written records
· The process and dynamics of the evolution of living entities
· The process and dynamics of the evolvement of Earth, and the celestial objects
It is important to understand that unlike conventional history, the history of objects, plants, and animals, as defined above, is generally not based on written records. As a result, sources that provide historical information on objects, plants, and animals, are often based on scientific evaluations, radioactive dating of fossils, rocks, and artifacts, experimental techniques as well as scientific speculations. It could be argued that the above is not history, because it is not based on written records. However, many sources use the word history when referring to celestial objects, plants, and animals, such as the following examples:
(The numbers of sources shown below are based on Google searches.)
· “The history of the universe” 5,470,000 sources
· “The history of the moon” 4,810,000 sources
· “History of the solar system” 3,300,000 sources
· “The history of the planets” 3,240,000 sources
· “The history of living things” 314,000 sources
· “The history of the human race” 2,260,000 sources
· “The history of planet Earth” 223,000 sources
· “The history of dinosaurs” 219,000 sources
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Topic 3.) Carrying Out Original Historical Research by Searching the Web ||| Based on the way I am using the terminology, original research excludes the use of historical research obtained from published sources, such as scholarly journals that deal with history. If you rephrase, and rearrange the research of others with your original thesis, and/or topic headings, it is still not original research. However, work of this nature may be quite acceptable in most college and graduate level courses, if the sources are credited properly. This raises the question, what is original research, and how can it be carried out with available resources. This is answered and explained in the following paragraphs. You can carry out original historical research by using the web, and Google, at www.Google.com With Google, you can search directly for the historical material you want, such as antique cars, automobiles of the 30s, and ancient artifacts of Rome. Alternatively, you can search for specialized websites that contain historical information. This can involve search phrases such as databases of old newspapers, databases of airplane accidents, and databases of car accidents. This search strategy is a trial and error process that sometimes provides very good results. With this search strategy I found three excellent websites for historical research which are: Library of congress website at: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, USA.gov www.usa.gov/statistics, and Penn Museum at www.penn.museum/collections A highly effective strategy for searching for historical information is to use Google images, at https://images.google.com Searches with Google images brings up photographs and drawings. However, you can click on any of the photographs or drawings, and it will take you to a website that often has very useful information. Sometimes, a quick glance at the Google images search page will provide all of the information you need, especially if you need photographs, such as of old buildings, ancient artifacts, ancient scrolls, antique cars, earliest airplanes, etc. If your research requires videos, use Google video www.google.com/videohp Videos can be especially useful if you are researching contemporary history, such as the moon landing, the Vietnam war, or Commercials from the 1960s. YouTube, at www.YouTube.com can also be useful in this regard.
Subtopic, What Do You do with the Information you Gather, if You want to Write an Original Research Paper on History From the above, it should be apparent that you could obtain the information you need for an original research project, from the web. However, history is not just a collection of old information. It can involve one or more of the following:
· An attempt to find out what really happened, by gathering historical evidence and evaluating it
· Analyzing, evaluating, comparing, and interpreting historical data and explaining the results in writing
· Attempts to identify functional and dysfunctional historical components, and dynamics, and how they affected a society, nation or culture, over an extended period of time
· Attempts to identify, define, and classify common components found in the history of nations, organizations, or religions
· Attempts to explain a specific set of historical components and dynamics in terms of a hypothesis
· Attempts to explain a set of related historical occurrences, in terms of a cause and effect sequence, and/or in terms of a dynamic system
· An attempt to show how one or more factors led to significant cultural change For example, how and why technological development change society.
· An attempt to identify and explain trends that appear to repeat over time, or go in cycles from one extreme to another
· An attempt to apply theories or conceptual models from other disciplines to historical information: This can involve applying the theories and/or conceptual models of sociology, political science, social psychology, and systems theory to historical information.
· An attempt to answer a set of questions by evaluating history, such as what are the factors that contribute to war, and what are the factors that increase the chances of peace
Subtopic, Two Examples, of Original History Research Projects ||| This subtopic will clarify the above, with two examples of plans that layout original research projects involving history. The second example is more detailed, and it includes some of the research, and sub tentative conclusions. Both of the examples involve questions that represent unknowns. The answers might be obtained with historical research.
Example 1) A historical study of the development of automobiles, blimps, and zeppelins in regard to accidents: Automobile accidents are relatively acceptable when compared to accidents with blimps, and zeppelins. In the early part of the 20th century the only feasible and relatively safe way to travel by air for long distances were blimps and zeppelins. However, a few accidents with blimps and zeppelins severely limited their utilization, especially for passenger flights across the ocean. Many accidents and deaths from automobiles, did not significantly limit their production, and utilization. This is in spite of the fact that they were alternatives to automobiles, such as trains, and horse-drawn carriages. Use Google search, Google images, and Google video to obtain historical information for the following:
· To determine if the above statement is true
· If the statement is true, why are automobile accidents relatively acceptable, when compared to accidents with blimps and zeppelins.
Example 2) Compare the advertisements from 1950 to 1959, with the advertisements of 2000 to 2009, to determine if they display any differences that relate to social change. Use Google images (https://images.google.com) for the comparison, with the goal of answering the following questions:
● How has the advertising changed, from the 1950-1959 period, to 2000‑2009 period?
● What are the factors that caused the changes?
● Did these factors affect other aspects of society?
● In what way are the factors and related changes functional, and in what way are they dysfunctional? (Answers to this question, might be somewhat subjective.)
The following are examples of searches with Google images that relate to the above questions. You can see the search results by left clicking on the blue underlined words. If the link fails, enter the blue underlined words in the search box in Google images at https://images.google.com
Advertisements of Coca-Cola from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of Coca-Cola from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of Pepsi-Cola from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of Pepsi-Cola from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of beer from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of beer from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of "orange juice" from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of "orange juice" from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of guns from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of guns from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of "medical supplies” from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of "medical supplies” from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of “television sets” from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of “television sets” from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements of computers from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements of computers from 2000 to 2009
Advertisements from 1950 to 1959 Advertisements from 2000 to 2009
By carefully studying the above, you might notice many subtle changes that took place between the two periods. However, there appears to be a change that is not subtle. Specifically, the advertisements from the 1950s appeared to have a higher percentage of women then the ads from 2000-2009. To determine if the above statement is correct, check it out mathematically. To do this, count the total number of ads on a webpage. Then count the number of ads that have one or more women. Divide the number of ads that have women, by the total number of ads on the webpage. Then multiply the result by 100 to obtain the percentage. It may be insightful to repeat the above for ads that have one or more men. If your calculations indicate that there are a higher percentage of women in advertisements in the 1950s, try to answer the following questions, with the aid of historical research:
· Does the reduction of the women in the ads represent prejudicial attitude towards women by the advertisers. Alternatively, does it represent a change in gender roles?
· Examine the ads from the two periods, to see if the gender roles displayed in the ads of the 1950s are different from the gender roles displayed in the ads from 2000 to 2009.
· This can be further evaluated by examining the advertisements for guns and computers in the 1950s with the ads from 2000 to 2009. (A quick inspection, without counting, appears that there are more women in the advertisements for computers and guns in the 1950s.)
· Do the changes of the advertising from the two periods represent societal change? If so, in what way might the changes be functional and in what way are they possibly dysfunctional.
The results can be further evaluated and checked by one or more of the following:
· Use Google images to search for additional products, which were not included in the set of searches presented above
· By examining videos and newspaper advertisements from the 1950s and from 2000 to 2009
· By carrying out researches for advertising philosophy from the 1950s and from the 2000 to 2009 period
Compare the Advertisements from 1950 to 1959 and Advertisements from 2000 to 2009 with the Advertisements of 2016. Is there a significant change from 2000-2009, to 2016, and if so, what changed, and why has it changed.
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