Use scholarly secondary sources. A secondary source is one
written by a later historian who had no part in what he or she is writ-
ing about. (In the rare cases when the historian was a participant in the
events, then the work—or at least part of it—is a primary source.) Histo-
rians read secondary sources to learn about how scholars have interpreted
the past. Just as you must be critical of primary sources, so too you must
be critical of secondary sources. You must be especially careful to dis-
tinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly secondary sources. Unlike,
say, nuclear physics, history attracts many amateurs. Books and articles
about war, great individuals, and everyday material life dominate popular
history. Some professional historians disparage popular history and may
even discourage their colleagues from trying their hand at it. You need
not share their snobbishness; some popular history is excellent. But—and
this is a big but—as a rule, you should avoid popular works in your
research, because they are usually not scholarly. Popular history seeks to
inform and entertain a large general audience. In popular history, dramat-
ic storytelling often prevails over analysis, style over substance, simplic-
ity over complexity, and grand generalization over careful qualification.
Popular history is usually based largely or exclusively on secondary
sources. Strictly speaking, most popular histories might better be called
tertiary, not secondary, sources. Scholarly history, in contrast, seeks to
discover new knowledge or to reinterpret existing knowledge. Good
scholars wish to write clearly and simply, and they may spin a compel-
ling yarn, but they do not shun depth, analysis, complexity, or qualifica-
tion. Scholarly history draws on as many primary sources as practical.
Now, your goal as a student is to come as close as possible to
the scholarly ideal, so you need to develop a nose for distinguishing the
scholarly from the non-scholarly. Here are a few questions you might
ask of your secondary sources (bear in mind that the popular/scholarly
distinction is not absolute, and that some scholarly work may be poor
scholarship): Who is the author? Most scholarly works are written by
professional historians (usually professors) who have advanced training
in the area they are writing about. If the author is a journalist or some-
one with no special historical training, be careful. Who publishes the
work? Scholarly books come from university presses and from a hand-
ful of commercial presses (for example, Norton, Routledge, Palgrave,
Penguin, Rowman & Littlefield, Knopf, and HarperCollins). If it’s an
article, where does it appear? Is it in a journal subscribed to by our
library, listed on JSTOR, or published by a university press? Is the edito-
rial board staffed by professors? Oddly enough, the word journal in the
title is usually a sign that the periodical is scholarly. What do the notes
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