Curiosity is the foundation of research. Think about a movie or book series that you are hooked on, an animal or event you love learning about, or a sport or hobby that fascinates you. You devote time to watching said sport, meeting with your equivalent of “Potterheads,” and following social media groups dedicated to your passion. Through different mediums, you gradually become an expert—and it does not feel like work. You think critically without thinking about it: you certainly don’t trust the information that that person shares about Star Wars (they have never even seen it!) and you fact check blog posts expounding theories about the moon landing that conflict with the knowledge you already have. You see where we are going: all of this is research. You already do research to learn about your passions, to cook dinner, or to drive somewhere new.
So why does the word research have the power to conjure up such fear when used in an academic context? One answer to that question is: smoke and mirrors. Although many of us follow our curiosities to conduct research on a daily basis, we may not be fully aware of the process we move through to discover information and draw our own conclusions based on that information. We do it seemingly without thinking. Unfortunately, some university instructors push us further down that path; they require historical research for papers and projects, but leave us on our own to figure out the logistics. We can end up stumbling through the assignment without truly recognizing the value and significance of the steps we take that ultimately allow us to successfully complete the task. In this way, for many students, academic research takes on a grey means-to-an-end hue rather than the vibrant color splash of a rainbow.
This is unfortunate. But take note: these instructors are not intentionally reneging on their guide duties. The fact is that they find it difficult to speak through the smoke and mirrors, to interpret the tricks of their trade for non-specialists. Chances are they did not receive explicit guidance from their own mentors. But now that they have been doing history for years, it comes as second nature to them.
And, so, we might expect the smoke to continue wafting well into the future. Except, luckily, there is a growing movement to “uncover” the tools of the historian’s craft. As renowned military historian John Lewis Gaddis noted in his book The Landscape of History, historians have come to “the belated discovery that our methods have been more sophisticated than our own awareness of them.”1 Lendol Calder, an award-winning professor of history at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, drew more attention to this fact in a 2006 article in the Journal of American History—one of the top peer-reviewed journals in the discipline. (We’ll cover peer review later in Part 1.) In that article, Calder called on his colleagues to develop a “signature pedagogy” for history—one that intentionally exposes the basic moves of “doing history” that often are difficult for novices to see.2 Calder is not alone; many other professionals are urging methodological transparency in the teaching and writing of history.
Partially in response to calls like this, the American Historical Association, the largest and oldest professional association for historians who work in or study the United States of America, launched the History Tuning Project in 2011. This is an ongoing collaboration between faculty members at more than 100 colleges and universities around the United States (in conversation with other stakeholders, including students and alumni) to identify and clearly describe “the skills, knowledge, and habits of mind that students develop in history courses and degree programs.” 3 Every few years, the History Tuning Project releases an updated report profiling the discipline, its core concepts, and its learning goals. More and more faculty members and history programs are integrating the History Tuning Project’s findings into their own courses, majors, and degrees, further clarifying the historical craft for students, faculty, and the broader society.
The Undergraduate Research Movement is also playing a role in this clarification process. In some ways, of course, research is nothing new to undergraduate education in history. Many schools have a long history of engaging undergraduate students in research. This is especially true in the sciences, but even in the discipline of history, generations of students have produced research papers for every kind of course in the catalog, from the History of Ancient Greece to the History of Sport (some of these might even survive in your institution’s archives and special collections). Most seniors wrap up their history major with a capstone or thesis experience, through which they design and carry out an independent research project (check your history department’s bookshelf for these). Many students have had the opportunity to assist their professors with research for books and articles (their names often appear in the acknowledgments).
But in the past few decades, undergraduate research has evolved beyond a kind of cottage industry and into a broad-based and institutionalized movement. In the United States, national organizations now exist, including the Council on Undergraduate Research and the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research, to support and promote creative inquiry. And a growing number of colleges and universities have created offices, administrative positions, funding pools, and symposia focused on undergraduate research. Similar developments are happening in other countries around the world, creating a global network dedicated to undergraduate research. (Chapter 24 explores the evolution of the movement in more detail.)
All of this has created many new opportunities for students to seek mentorship, develop their critical and creative thinking skills, further their career aspirations, and meaningfully contribute to academic conversations. And students are taking advantage of these opportunities. We see evidence of this in the number of people participating in the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, which takes place each spring at a different school in the United States. Whereas in 1987, the conference brought together 400 student presenters, by 2020, conference organizers reviewed more than 4,139 abstracts submitted from students in 48 US states and five countries around the world.4 We also see evidence of student interest in the widening array of undergraduate research journals that are designed, edited, and published by undergraduates with assistance from faculty advisors.
This boom in undergraduate research is producing a new generation of critical thinkers, innovators, and change-makers. And, if you’re reading this book, you are interested in being part of it all.
Part 1 of this book is designed to help you do that. More specifically, the chapters in Part 1 will help you to see the big picture of historical research through brief discussions of its key stages. We approach the discipline of history as a grand conversation, with historical research a means of participating in that dialogue. And just like communications specialists, lawyers, or actors, historians have many tools and tricks that they use in their everyday work. These are their methods and methods are at the heart of the chapters of Part 1.
Collectively, the chapters in Part 1 will help to disperse the smoke and shatter the mirrors that so often hide the process of historical research. We designed this part of the book to strike a balance between the theoretical and the practical, to help you do what you already know how to do in a different context and for slightly different reasons. You are curious; you know how to find reliable answers to questions about your favorite music groups or sports teams, or how to use public transportation, or when and where to look for the constellation Orion or the comet NEOWISE. Part 1 helps you transfer your curiosity and skills into the academic realm of history, empowering you to make meaningful and sound contributions to historical conversations.