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WHAT IS HISTORY?

"a meaningful record of human achievement" (Singh, Bajpai, 2008)

"not merely a list of chronological events but a truthful integrated

account of the relationships between persons, events, times, and
places

"a past event, a record, or account of something that has happened"

(Majetski,1986)

a series of competing interpretive narrative"

a field of study with its own set of criteria and methods that enables
researchers to collect data and interpret findings

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: A RESEARCH

METHOD
An integral component of the study of history
wherein the researcher discovers, analyzes,
interprets and understands what has happened
in the past using records and accounts.

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: A RESEARCH

METHOD

GOAL: to develop a narrative about a specific topic

based on the evidence at hand

individual, an idea, a movement, or an institution

overlaps with other qualitative research method

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: A RESEARCH

METHOD

not to predict, rather, to understand the past in order

to explain present or future relationships among
ideas, events, institutions, or people and generate
new ideas and insights about them

often necessitates answering questions of how or

why something happened the way it did.

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: A RESEARCH

METHOD
Three essential characteristics:
1. Interest in the past
2. Empirical
3. Synthesis and Meaning

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: A RESEARCH

METHOD
Particularly useful...

1. in establishing a baseline or background

2. in obtaining knowledge about unexamined areas and
reexamining questions
3. using the past in explaining the present and future

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: A RESEARCH

METHOD
REQUISITES:
1. Different perspectives must be addressed and appreciated and it is
critical to understand the perspective of a sources author in order
to assess the sources validity and reliability.
2. Both primary sources, created during the time under study, and
secondary, scholarly sources should be utilized in order to develop a
fuller understanding of the subject matter.
3. The scholarly debate on a certain subject must be grasped and
researcher must come to personal conclusions and determinations
based on ones own reading of the materials at hand.

QUESTIONS TO ASK (HISTORICAL

RESEARCH)
Can you narrow your focus?
Can you find primary and secondary sources?
Are your sources reliable?
Are the authorities you are citing reliable?
What concepts or theory of history are you using?
Whats the impact?

KINDS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCHES

Biographical studies lives of important persons
Movement or idea studies development of political,
social, economic ideas and movements
Regional studies cities, states, nations and regions

KINDS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCHES

Institutional studies organizations
Case histories socials settings of an event
Selected studies special element in a complex process
Editorial studies documents

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS IN JOURNALISM

Descriptive
- lists salient features about subject

Explanatory
- addresses reasons behind features

Exploratory
- examines literature to find gaps

SOURCES OF HISTORICAL RECORDS

PRIMARY
- Documents, remains or relics, spoken account

SECONDARY
- reports of an individual that relays findings from primary
sources

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

1. formulate historical questions
2. gain some certainty as to the facts of the past
3. thoroughly review the sources at hand,
recognizing both gaps in available information
and both the context and perspective of the topic
of analysis.
4. seek or establish cause and effect between those
facts in order to understand why things
happened and answer the questions formulated

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

(CERTAINTY OF

FACTS)

historical evidence
trustworthy, validated, and usable data
which can be accepted as proper basis for
the testing and interpretation of a hypothesis
derived from historical data by the process of
criticism

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

(CERTAINTY

OF FACTS)
Two stages/types of historical criticism:
1. external criticism
establishes the authenticity or genuineness of
data
is the relic or document a true one rather than a
forgery, a counterfeit, or a hoax?
2. internal criticism
establishes the accuracy or worth of data

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

(REVIEWING

SOURCES)
hermeneutics

an essential quality of social research wherein the

researcher must be able to take on, mentally, the
circumstances, views and feelings of those being
studied to interpret their actions appropriately

the art, science, or skill of interpretation

conclusions are harder to pin down compared to those

drawn from quantitative research methods, and are
more subject to debate

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

Revising and reformulation of hypothesis

As to the analysis itself: no listed steps; historical

analysis is a fluid method

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

"Reading and Evaluating Documents"
by Ron Aminzade and Barbara Laslett, University of Minnesota

1. Who composed the documents? Why were they written? Why

have they survived all these years? What methods were used
to acquire the information contained in the documents?
2. What are some of the biases in the documents and how might
you go about checking or correcting them? How inclusive or
representative is the sample of individuals, events, etc
contained in the document? What were the institutional
constraints and the general organization routines under which
the document was prepared? To what extent does the
document provide more of an index of institutional activity
than of the phenomenon being studied?

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

What is the time lapse between the observation of the
events documented and the witnesses'
documentation of them? How confidential or public
was the document meant to be? What role did the
etiquette, convention, and custom play in the
presentation of the material contained within the
document? If you relied solely upon the evidence
contained in these documents, how might your vision
of the past be distorted? What other kinds of
documents might you look at for evidence on the
same issues?

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: STEPS

3. What are the key categories and concepts used by
the writer of the document to organize the
information presented? What are the selectivities or
silences that result from these categories of the
thought?
4. What sort of theoretical issues and debates do these
documents cast light upon? What kinds of historical
and/or sociological questions do they help answer?
What sorts of valid interferences can one make from
the information contained these documents? what
sorts of generalizations can one make on the basis of
the information contained in these documents?

WHY HISTORICAL ANALYSIS?

Enhances the credibility of statements about the past,

establish relationships, and to determine possible causeend-effect relationships

Enhances the trustworthiness and credibility of a study

LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES

Although the purpose of science is prediction, the historian

cannot usually generalize on the basis of past events.

The historian/researcher must depend upon the reported

observations of others, often witnesses of doubtful
competence and sometimes of doubtful objectivity

History is like solving a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.

Insufficient evidence leads to a researcher inferring what
has happened and why it happened

LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES

The historian/researcher cannot control the conditions of

observation nor manipulate the significant variables.

Documents may be falsified deliberately and that words and phrase

used in old records many now have very different meanings

LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES

People have biases or lies (faulty articles, statements, etc)

Challenge of being fair and objective; not angling history

Reductionism complicated matters simplified

LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES

Discovering whats in the text vs Imposing structures on
text
Elicit patterns from history vs imposing patters on
history
Theory helps discover pattern vs theory creates patterns