Taking Notes for History



Taking Notes for History

The palest ink is worth more than the most retentive memory.

Chinese Proverb

Note taking can be a daunting task for students, and yet, it is imperative that they learn effective techniques for reading and understanding texts. Studies find that note taking helps students focus attention, promotes more thorough elaboration of ideas, and encourages efforts to relate ideas and organize materials. The tips provided in this handout will help students to engage the text to ensure a greater, lasting comprehension.

Tips for making Lecture Notes

In order to improve your note-taking, consider the following:

• Make sure that you have done the appropriate background reading before class lectures and assignments

• Listen for signaling phrases while you are taking notes… ie. “this is important”, “you will want to remember this”, “these differ in THREE important ways”…

• Pay attention to the FRAMEWORK: Most information can be organized into one of the two frameworks: sequence or classification. Sequence is used to explain change, influence or phases. Classification is used to identify events, ideas and terms.

• Make your notes brief: Never use a sentence where you can use a phrase and use abbreviations and symbols (just be sure to be consistent)

• In most cases you should paraphrase into your own words

• Use an outline format and avoid paragraphs

• Leave room on your page for additional notes that may come after further reading or review

• Always include a date in case your notes get disorganized

• Look to take effective notes the first time, rarely do students have time to rewrite their notes

• Do not write notes on loose pieces of paper, use a binder or a notebook to ensure organization

• REVIEW YOUR NOTES REGULARLY!

• Make analytical conclusions at the end or your notes

Tips for Making Reading Notes

1. Read the entire section FIRST.

❖ When time permits, reading a chapter before you take notes on it will help you to determine what is most important to take note of in that chapter.

❖ Begin making decisions about what material is important enough to record into your notes, and what is not.

❖ Determine a focus for this section or chapter of the text; your focus will help you to make the decisions.

❖ Use a clean sheet of paper to begin and title it appropriately.

2. List key terms and ideas with a brief description of each.

3. Create sub-titles (perhaps the ones used in the text will work).

4. Under each subtitle, make notes of key events. You MAY want to focus on who?, what?, where?, when?, and how?. The WHY? information will be discussed separately.

❖ Use point form

❖ Include page references – to ensure that you can cite the material and return to it in the text when necessary

❖ If you copy a passage word for word (do only sparingly), put it in quotation marks in your notes with a page number

❖ Avoid copying. Copying is easy because you do not have to think, so there is not much learning happening.

❖ When you take notes, put the information into your own words. This involves re-writing the entire idea, not just changing a word or two. The act of re-writing a passage is called paraphrasing, and forces you to understand it first.

5. Make connections, draw conclusions, interpret and analyze the information you have gathered. This is the WHY?..

❖ This last section tries to get at the interpretations of the historians whose work you have been reading.

❖ Their interpretation tries to explain the behaviour of the people, and why the events are important.

❖ If you can find and analyze the why?, you will better understand the topic and the reasons it is worth studying.

❖ Add your own evaluation of the section of the text.

❖ What are the main ideas?

❖ What questions do you still have?

Of course, these are only suggestions, and you may have some great note-taking ideas of your own. In the activity you will begin this week, you will have an opportunity to share all of your great ideas with others.

Introduction to Historical Method

History is defined as the study of past events that involved or affected people; it is a study based upon the interpretation of evidence. Historians are interested in times of change and conflict and in gaining an understanding of the lives of the people who live these experiences. In doing their research, historians try to answer three major questions: what caused the change/event, and how did the change/event impact the lives of people who experienced it, and how can we interpret/understand their account of the event

Once a historian has decided upon an area of interest to study s/he goes through four major steps:

- Gathering as much data as possible from a wide variety of sources

- Analyzing the sources and data for their reliability, relevance, and importance

- Speculating to fill in gaps in the data

- Formulating and sharing a theory or historical interpretation

Because different historians may make differing judgments about the reliability or usefulness of different data sources, and may then fill in the gaps differently, we can see many different interpretations of the same event. The body of varying interpretations of an event is referred to as its historiography. It is important when doing research into a topic to become familiar with the major interpretations that have been published. A good way to find many of these sources is to read the suggested reading section of your textbook, as well as footnoted works. As students of history it is your task to try to make sense of these differing interpretations, to come to a satisfactory understanding.

Some key definitions:

a) Artifact: a surviving object from the past, made by humans

b) Primary source: sources originating from the time of a historical event or personage; they may be original documents produced at the time, interviews with eyewitnesses or participants in events, diaries or letters produced by involved people, or other types of first hand accounts

c) Secondary source: sources of evidence which are not first hand accounts; these include historical monographs, textbooks, journal articles, documentary films, and accounts which are retold through a source other than the original person or format

Evaluation of Sources

Research can be defined as scholarly investigation in all available primary and secondary sources in order to extend human knowledge. The degree of scholarliness increases as the use of academic sources increases. There is a very wide range of primary sources, written and unwritten, traditional and non-traditional, but they are of differing value. There are also some new techniques, such as aerial photography which are not, strictly speaking, sources. They are techniques for learning more from a given primary source.

Primary sources are a major form of evidence used in developing an argument. Although the scope of what can be considered a primary source will vary in time, place, and circumstance, the following guidelines provide a useful operating definition.

Primary Sources

a) information about an event that is provided by eyewitness or participant

b) information about a person provided by someone who knew the individual

c) a statement of information or ideas given by someone living during the time period under discussion

d) government or legal proclamations and publications

Types of Primary Sources

▪ archaeological remains

▪ papyri

▪ public written sources

▪ private written sources

▪ minutes of meetings

▪ parish registers

▪ private diplomatic papers

▪ letters and diaries

▪ photos and film

▪ the arts

▪ oral tradition

▪ public speeches

▪ oral histories

▪ verbal interviews

Hierarchy of Primary Sources

▪ Manuscript before printed

▪ Original before copy

▪ Written before oral

▪ Official before unofficial

▪ Pure primary before partially secondary i.e. contemporary histories, autobiography

▪ Unwitting record before intentional record

▪ Original language before translation

Evaluation of Primary Sources

Primary sources are valuable because they bring the reader as close as possible to the event or time period under discussion. Yet the reader can never be sure if even an honest eyewitness really presents an accurate picture. Four people watching the same traffic accident might well see the event in four different ways. Therefore, it is essential that each primary source be evaluated to determine the reliability and the bias of the information provided.

Authenticity must be established, using internal and external evidence.

Internal Evidence of Authenticity:

a) Is the source consistent with the known methods and materials of the period?

External Evidence of Authenticity:

a) What is the probability of such a document being produced?

b) Is its production consistent with other events?

c) Is it in accord with known facts? If not, is its credibility such that one should revise what one knows in the light of the new document or source?

Once authenticity has been established, reliability must be assessed.

Reliability:

To determine reliability the scholar must consider some of the following questions:

a) How and why did the document come into existence in the first place? Free will or duress? Genuine expression or deceit?

b) Who created the document, and what role did she or he play? Important or obscure? Was she/he in a position to know?

c) What sort of bias is evident?

d) Does the document demonstrate internal consistency?

e) To what extent is the information in the document consistent with other documents from this period?

When examining sources, always consider:

ORIGIN

PURPOSE

CONTENT

VALUE

LIMITATION

On an IB Exam, you are wise to underline or put boxes around each of the terms to ensure they have been discussed and that your examiner sees that you have discussed each.

-----------------------

Do this for each

source that you

are asked to

discuss!

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