Intuitive Research

What does intuitive research mean? The idea behind intuitive research is teaching good research habits that build good instincts and patterns for researchers. Experienced researchers understand the various steps of the research process, but have internalized them after countless hours of research to the point where they do not have to check a set of directions to know where to look or how to proceed. This ability is particularly useful for research topics that require a lot of creative research techniques and outside the box thinking. It is also helpful for researchers when reaching hurdles or roadblocks during the research process. Intuitive researchers can glance at a possible source and tell within a few minutes whether the source is useful or not for their research purposes. Choosing to add a source to your resource list is not the same as critically analyzing a source. However, both steps are part of research. Gathering resources and recognizing unusual sources of information for your research is a way to expand the scope and depth of your research. One way to develop intuitive research skills is to spend time studying resources and sources. Learning about various types of resources will help you recognize useful sources. Researchers do not have to limit themselves to books. Articles, interviews, videos, audio recordings, and other media are also worth assessing for their research value.
To provide you with a more specific example of how to build these research skills, I have compiled the following resources to help you
learn more about historical records and resources.


Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and Writing

By Anthony Brundage

Historical Research Using British Newspapers

By Denise Bates

The Family Tree Toolkit

By Kenyatta D. Berry

Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past

By Sam Wineburg
Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian’s Macroscope
By Shawn Graham

By Shawn Graham

*Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn a portion of the sales from qualifying purchases. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JSTOR Open Access Content

Image
JSTOR, one of the favorite electronic journals of historians for finding full-text articles, has open-access content that does not require a subscription. To search and view the open content visit https://about.jstor.org/whats-in-jstor/books/open-access-books-jstor/ for books and https://www.jstor.org/open/ for everything else. Educators will want to check the results first and decide what resources to share with their students. While the majority of the articles and books are college level, the sources consist of several peer reviewed articles and books with credible and factual information. The database itself, in addition to the open content, is a great discussion point for history educators. Acknowledging the information needs of history students and recognizing the desire for full-text articles helps students learn about one of the major resources used in graduate level research. While I have personally used this database quite often in my own research, I ...
Read more

Asking for Directions

Image
Are you a person who does not like to ask for directions? Do you need a history g.p.s. device to help you find your way through history? It is okay to admit when you need advice or directions. To help you I have put together the following list if you get lost along the way. How to find your closest library: https://www.worldcat.org/librarie The Top 7 alternatives to Wikipedia: https://oedb.org/ilibrarian/top-7-alternatives-to-wikipedia/ (from Open Education Database) Free Online Textbooks: http://www.ushistory.org/textbooks.htm Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ Open Yale Courses (History): https://oyc.yale.edu/history Free Online Courses in American History from edX: https://www.edx.org/learn/us-history MIT Open Courseware: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/ History for Kids: http://www.historyforkids.net/ InfoBase: https://online.infobase.com/HRC/Browse/Product/3 History Quiz-See if you are on the right path: https://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-constituti...
Read more

Historical Building Blocks

Image
If you google the phrase “Doing History” you will come across several blogs, websites, and articles d iscussing the importance of taking part in the historical process. The building blocks of the historical process include understanding what primary sources are, how to find and study them, as well as how to critically analyze and interpret a variety of historical records. Secondary sources also play a role in the historical process. Historians create secondary sources when they write history articles or books on a historical topic.  Understanding how to use both primary and secondary sources is important, however it is also essential that history students learn a variety of ways to approach thinking about history. Studying the objects and artifacts of past civilizations helps us place people and events in historical context. Determining chronological sequences also helps historians figure out what decisions may have led to later events. Another concept that is harder to gra...
Read more