This syllabus was used in Spring 2015. There will be some revisions to the class in spring 2016,
but the essential assignments, including the Imagine a Research Project assignments, will be
used again.
History 294-001
Seminar on Historical Method: Research Techniques
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Spring 2015, TR 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Class location: Holton 341
email: seligman@uwm.edu
phone: 414-229-4565
Amanda I. Seligman, Associate Professor
office: Holton 346
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
or by appointment
The purpose of this class is to introduce students to the spectrum of techniques that
historians use to conduct research and evaluate evidence, including primary, secondary, and
tertiary sources. Students will learn about historical research methods by visiting various library
departments where they will conduct small research projects; listening to guest speakers talk
about specialized research methods; and reading and discussing historical scholarship. Other
topics of critical importance to history majors that will be covered in the class include historical
argumentation, digital history, and academic integrity. A major purpose of the course is to
prepare students to take History 600, the capstone course in the history major at UWM, which
requires students to produce original research papers based on primary sources. Accordingly,
throughout the course students will conduct small research assignments that constitute integral
pieces of the kind of larger projects completed in History 600. The approach of this class is
largely cultural and experiential. We will read about the experiences and views of historians and
conduct historical research in order to understand the research techniques of historians.
Readings
Reading assignments for this course are available at the UWM bookstore and through the UWM
Library catalog reserve section. The books ordered for purchase are:
Peter Charles Hoffer, Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud—American History from Bancroft
and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin (New York: Public Affairs,
2004).
Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 8th
edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).
The Hoffer book has been placed on reserve in the library. Previous editions of Turabian have
the basic information you will need to write correct citations (except online sources), but the 8th
edition does include new material that is part of the required reading for the course. A hard copy
of The Chicago Manual of Style, the larger work from which Turabian derives, is also held in the
UWM Golda Meir Library reference desk; it is also available electronically through the library’s
list of databases. I urge you strongly to purchase your own copy of Turabian, which you will
refer to throughout this course and in History 600.
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Time Commitment
This course is an undergraduate level course carrying 3 credit hours; we meet twice a week for
75 minutes, for a total of 14 weeks or 35 hours total. In addition, students are expected to commit
a significant portion of their out-of-class time to preparing written assignments and for class
discussion by completing the assigned reading. Of course the amount of time spent on each
assignment varies by student, but I estimate that the reading assignments will take approximately
38 hours and the written assignments will take approximately 86 hours. Thus the class requires a
commitment of a little more than 3 hours of preparation time for every hour in class. Students
should be aware that this workload is not distributed exactly evenly throughout the semester and
plan accordingly.
Grading policies
Course grades will be calculated as follows:
Assignment:
 February 10: citation scavenger hunt: 2%
 February 17: Imagine a Research Project, Special Collections: 10%
 February 24: Imagine a Research Project, Archives: 10%
 March 10: Imagine a Research Project, AGSL: 10%
 March 26: Imagine a Research Project, Microtext: 10%
 April 7: list of factually-based questions: 3%
 April 9: one paragraph on Bellesiles: 2%
 April 16: one page on Bellesiles: 3%
 April 28: Wikiality/Tertiary source paper: 10%
 May 5: Imagine a Research Project, Digital Archive: 10%
 May 7: Historian’s code: 5%
 May 12: Background/contextual paper: 10%
 Participation: 15%
To receive full credit, all assignments must be turned by the beginning of the class period on the
day they are due. Late assignments can be accepted and evaluated for their quality, but the grade
will be reduced by one step of a letter for each day they are overdue until the maximum grade is
a C-. In the event of an emergency, please contact me about the possibility of an extension.
Failure to complete all required components of the course may result in a failing grade for the
course as a whole. In general, papers should be submitted in hard copy at the class session when
they are due. If you miss class or your paper is late or has an extended due date, you may submit
it via the course D2L Dropbox.
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Instructions for most assignments are embedded in the schedule section of this syllabus.
Instructions for the “Imagine a Research Project” assignments will be distributed separately and
posted on the course D2L site.
Note: errors in the formatting of footnotes and bibliographic items will have an adverse effect on
the grade for an assignment. All citations must comply with Chicago Manual of Style format.
This format will be discussed in class and can be found in a required book for this course:
Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 8th edition. This
book summarizes and gives examples of most citation forms from the Chicago Manual of Style
that undergraduate students should need. The AGSL staff will provide a special citation handout
with recommendations for citation of maps.
Seminars depend on the willingness of all participants to give serious attention not only to their
own ideas, but also to engage with the contributions of their peers. The allocation of 10% of the
course grade to participation reflects the importance of your active contribution to the group
throughout the term; your grade will reflect both the quality of your participation and the
regularity of your attendance. Listening respectfully is a part of participation. The participation
grade will reflect not the overall quantity of your comments, but the quality of your contribution
to class discussion. Your participation grade will also reflect your attendance pattern. One or two
absences for serious illness or other genuine emergency may be unavoidable, but more than two
absences can be severely disruptive both to your own learning and to the intellectual
development of the other members of group. I do not require (or accept) written excuses for
absences from class, but I will be concerned by a pattern of absence no matter the reason.
Students with excessive absences can expect to receive a participation grade no higher than C+
no matter what their contributions on the days they are present. If you anticipate missing several
class meetings, you should consider dropping the course.
Requirements for papers
 Double spacing (Exception: bibliographies, lists, and response papers are single spaced)
 Use a 12-point font
 At least one inch of margin at the top and bottom and each side of the page, to allow for
handwritten comments
 Double-sided papers are accepted
 Page numbers throughout
 Formal footnotes, based on Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers,
Theses, and Dissertations or The Chicago Manual of Style. A handout with examples will
be reviewed in class and will be posted on the course D2L site. Chicago’s own overview
of citation matters is available in section 14.18 and through the online version at
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch14/ch14_sec018.html.
Administrative Notes:
If you need special accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course,
please contact me as soon as possible.
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Handy email addresses:
 The librarian assigned to our class for most instructional sessions is Tyler Smith. He can
be reached at tssmith@uwm.edu.
 Max Yela, the head of Special Collections, can be reached at maxyela@uwm.edu.
 Abigail Nye, who will conduct the archives instruction, can be reached at
anye@uwm.edu.
All students are expected to observe University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee standards of academic
honesty. This critical topic will be a recurring theme in class. UWM’s policies regarding
academic integrity are available at
http://www4.uwm.edu/acad_aff/policy/academicmisconduct.cfm. Students who plagiarize may
receive not only a 0 for the particular assignment in question, but also a grade of F for the entire
course. Northwestern University offers an excellent guide to understanding plagiarism at
http://www.northwestern.edu/provost/policies/academic-integrity/how-to-avoid-plagiarism.html.
Academic Advising in History: If you have earned in excess of 45 credits and have not yet
declared a major, you are encouraged to do so. You must have declared and completed the
requirements of a major in order to graduate. If you either are interested in declaring a major (or
minor) in History or require academic advising in History, see the history department webpage,
http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/history/undergrad/major.cfm.
University Policies: See http://www4.uwm.edu/secu/SyllabusLinks.pdf for further information
about UWM course-related policies.
If you have any concerns about the course, want to talk about your academic progress, or are
interested in knowing more about history, please come and see me in my office hours or send me
email. I am also available for appointments at times other than my scheduled office hours.
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Course Schedule
Note: Items marked with (D2L) are posted on the course D2L site.
1. January 27, 2015: Course overview; historian’s code
2. January 29, 2015: Overview of library use
 Meet in Library Instruction Room A for overview of use of the library with Tyler
Smith.



Reading:
Turabian chapters 3 and 15 and pp. 77-80
(D2L) Andrew Abbott, Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with
Library and Internet Materials (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014),
introduction.
3. February 3, 2015: Citation workshop
 Bring your copy of Turabian to class
 Reading: Hoffer, Preface and Introduction
4. February 5, 2015: Refworks instruction
 Meet in Library Instruction Room A for instruction in the use of RefWorks by Kate
Ganski. This link provides a map to the room:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/libapps/accounts/6356/images/instruction_room_map.png
 Reading: Hoffer chapter 1
5. February 10, 2015: Special collections
 Meet in the Special Collections Department on the 4th floor of the Golda Meir Library
for an introduction to Special Collections.
 Reading: Hoffer, chapter 2
 Assignment due: citation scavenger hunt
6. February 12, 2015: What are archives?
Reading:
 (D2L) Craig Robertson, “Mechanisms of Exclusion: Historicizing the Archive and
the Passport,” in Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History, ed.
Antoinette Burton (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2005), 68-86.
 (D2L) Jennifer S. Milligan, “‘What is an Archive?’ in the History of Modern France,”
in Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History, ed. Antoinette Burton
(Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2005), 68-86.
 Hoffer, chapter 3
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7. February 17, 2015: Archives and primary source speed dating
Location to be announced

Assignment due: Special Collections Imagine a Research Project
8. February 19, 2015: Primary source poetry slam
Reading:
 (D2L) Anthony Brundage, Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and
Writing, 5th edition (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 19-24.
 (D2L) Andrew Abbott, Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with
Library and Internet Materials (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 142148.
 Patrick Rael, Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College
Students, “How to Read a Primary Source” (section 2.B),
http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/
9. February 24, 2015: Guest speaker: Prof. Michael Gordon on Oral History
Reading:
 (D2L) Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in
Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 3rd edition (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 2010); chapter 4, “The Domus-Centered Society,” pp. 75-106 and footnotes
on pages 252-258.
Assignment due: Archives Imagine a Research Project
10. February 26, 2015: Maps
Reading:
 (D2L) Mark Monmonier, Mapping It Out: Expository Cartography for the
Humanities and Social Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993),
chapter 1.
 (D2L) Rebecca Solnit, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2010), Introduction, The Right Wing of the Dove, Poison/Palate
[note that these maps are in color and the original page size is odd. You might prefer
to read a digital version of this assignment over a printed one.]
 Mapping Decline website, http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa.edu/. You do not need to
follow the external links, but you should study the maps very carefully and examine
the linked documents.
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11. March 3, 2015: American Geographical Society Library

Meet in Golda Meir Library, American Geographical Society Library, 3rd Floor, East
Wing, for an introduction to the AGSL from Jovanka Ristic.
12. March 5, 2015: Narrative
Reading:
 Hoffer, chapter 4
 (D2L) William Cronon, “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative,”
Journal of American History 78(4) (1992): 1347-1376.
13. March 10, 2015: Who are faculty members, or Should I go to Graduate School too?
Assignment due: American Geographical Society Library Imagine a Research Project
14. March 12, 2015: Microtext visit.

Meet in Library Instruction Room A for overview of Microtext with librarian Tyler
Smith.
15. March 24, 2015: Big data
Reading:
 (D2L) Roy Rosenzweig, “Scarcity or Abundance: Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.”
American Historical Review 108 (3) (2003): 735-762.
16. March 26, 2015: Guest Speaker: Prof. Margo Anderson on Numbers in History
Assignment due: Microtext Imagine a Research Project
17. March 31, 2015: Close reading of a primary source

Reading:
(D2L) Elaine Lewinnek, “Better than a Bank for a Poor Man?: Home Financing
Strategies in Early Chicago,” Journal of Urban History, 32 (2006): 274-301.
18. April 2, 2015: Tertiary source searching
 Meet in Library Instruction Room A for introduction to Tertiary Source searching with
Tyler Smith.
19. April 7, 2015: Guest speaker: Jim Nelsen on teaching
Assignment due: At this point in the semester, you have imagined a total of four different
research papers you might write using primary sources available in the Golda Meir
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library and online. When conducting primary source research, historians often have
questions about the material that can be answered quickly and easily using tertiary
sources introduced in class last week. Pick three of the Imagine a Research Project
proposals that you developed in the earlier part of this semester; at least one should be a
non-U.S. based project and at least one should be based on materials produced before the
20th century (unless you are saving one of these for the Digital Archives IRP). For each
of the three research projects, produce a list of 4 factually-based questions. Using the
library’s tertiary sources, find answers to those questions. Turn in a list of the questions
and their answers. Each answer should conclude with a precisely footnoted citation
(including page numbers) where those answers can be found. You should also
indicate which primary source is guiding each of the imagined research projects, and
provide a bibliographic citation for that primary source.
20. April 9, 2015: Argument
Reading:
 (D2L) Jim Cullen, Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History
(Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 29-35.
 (D2L) Bellesiles, Arming America, introduction and pages 266-267, and 445.
Assignment due: Write one paragraph summarizing Bellesiles’ argument in Arming America,
based on the provided materials.
21. April 14, 2015: scholarly peer review
Reading:
 (D2L) Joel Williamson, “Wounds Not Scars: Lynching, the National Conscience, and
the American Historian,” Journal of American History 83(4) (March 1997): 12211253.
 Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty, “Introduction,” in Writing History in the
Digital Age, Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2013), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dh/12230987.0001.001/1:3/-writing-history-in-the-digital-age?g=dculture;rgn=div1;view=fulltext;xc=1
 Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty, “Conclusion,” in Writing History in the
Digital Age, Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2013), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dh/12230987.0001.001/1:10/-writing-history-in-the-digital-age?g=dculture;rgn=div1;view=fulltext;xc=1#10.3
22. April 16, 2015: Arming America follow up
Reading
 Hoffer, chapter 5
 (D2L) The following articles, all in the April 2002 issue of the William and Mary
Quarterly:
1. Gross, “Introduction,” (pp. 203-204)
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2. Main, “Many Things Forgotten: the Use of Probate Records in Arming America,”
(pp. 211-216)
3. Gruber, “Of Arms and Men: Arming America and Military History,” (pp. 217222)
4. Roth, “Guns, Gun Culture, and Homicide: the Relationship between Firearms, the
Use of Firearms, and Interpersonal Violence,” (pp. 223-240)
5. Bellesiles, “Exploring America’s Gun Culture,” (pp. 241-268)
Assignment due: free response, 500 words, single spaced: How do these readings affect
your interpretation of Arming America?
23. April 21, 2015: Wikipedia
Reading:
 (D2L) Roy Rosenzweig, “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the
Past,” Journal of American History (2006): 117-146.
 Timothy Messer-Kruse, “The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia,” The Chronicle of
Higher Education online, February 12, 2012, http://chronicle.com/article/The-UndueWeight-of-Truth-on/130704/
 Shawn Graham, “The Wikiblitz: A Wikipedia Editing Assignment in a First-Year
Undergraduate Class,” in Writing History in the Digital Age, Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack
Dougherty, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), available at
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dh/12230987.0001.001/1:5/--writing-history-in-the-digitalage?g=dculture;rgn=div1;view=fulltext;xc=1#5.3.
24. April 23, 2015 Introduction to Digital Archives
Reading:
 Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin, “Creating Meaning in a Sea of Databases:
The Women and Social Movements Web Sites,” in Writing History in the Digital
Age, ed. Jack Dougherty and Kristin Nawrotzki (2013), available at
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dh/12230987.0001.001/1:7/--writing-history-in-thedigital-age?g=dculture;rgn=div1;view=fulltext;xc=1#7.2
25. April 28, 2015: Crafting an argument
Assignment due:
Part I: find three articles on historical topics on Wikipedia.org. One article should be
good, one article should be bad, and one article should be excellent. You should use
your own best judgment in deciding what counts as bad, good, and excellent. List
these articles, indicating which you think was excellent, good, and bad, including the
date and time you accessed them. Print the first page of each article and turn it in.
Part II: for each of the three articles, find a corresponding (as close as you can get) article
in a specialty print encyclopedia (such as those found in the reference room). Try to
avoid general reference encyclopedias; part of the point of this assignment is to
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familiarize you with the breadth of tertiary sources available to you. Make
photocopies of these articles and on the photocopies write citations indicating where
they came from.
Part III: write a short paper (750 words) comparing the Wikipedia articles to those from
the specialty encyclopedias, in answer to the question: “What qualities make a tertiary
source good and useful for historical research?” Use specific examples from the
articles you have selected. The focus of the paper should be about what works and
does not work in all six articles; the paper should not try to answer a question about
whether Wikipedia articles are better or worse than those that appear in specialty
encyclopedias. In writing this paper, you should think about such issues as the
interpretive power of the article; the accessibility of the prose; the level of factual
detail; the visual layout of the information; and any other issues that strike you as
relevant. Turn in copies of the print articles (with citations noted on the copy) with
your paper.
Note: This is a formal paper. Chicago-style footnotes are required.
26. April 30, 2015: Academic integrity workshop
Reading:
 Hoffer, to end
27. May 5, 2015: Guest Speaker: Prof. Jasmine Alinder on photographs as historical
sources
Assignment due: Digital Archives Imagine a Research Project
28. May 7, 2015: Conclusion
Assignment due: Write your own historian’s code (250-500 words)
Reading:
 (e) Paul Robinson, “Becoming a Gay Historian,” in Becoming Historians, ed. James
M. Banner, Jr., and John R. Gillis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 229258.
 (e) Dwight T. Pitcaithley, “Taking the Long Way from Euterpe to Clio,” in Becoming
Historians, ed. James M. Banner, Jr., and John R. Gillis (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2009), 54-75.
May 12, noon: Final assignment due: Pick one of the Imagine a Research Project
assignments that you completed earlier in the semester. Gather secondary and tertiary sources
that provide you with background information on the topic. Write a 1000 word paper that sets
the stage for an intensive study based on the primary source. As an appendix, attach a copy
of the Imagine a Research project assignment that is the foundation for this paper. The
purpose of this paper is to provide context, background information for a projected research
paper. All information should be cited using correct Chicago Manual of Style formats.
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