1.
Historical Inquiry
Nazlin Bhimani
UCA Library Consultant

2.
Why Historical Inquiry?
Historical inquiry exposes a variety of threads,
intricately woven into the blanket of time, which
we as scholars, are duty-bound to unpick in
order to understand the present…and to
prepare ourselves for the future.
Source

3.
History allows us to question our understanding of
why things are the way they are and the
assumptions we make.
It enables us to foster a long view of social, political,
economic and cultural issues that we would not
consider if we simply take for granted the so-called
facts, which may simply be interpretations – many
of which are so easily found on the internet.

4.
Primary Sources
• Provides direct, firsthand evidence of an event, object,
person or work of art.
• Primary sources include historical and legal documents
such as manuscripts and policy documents, eyewitness
accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces
of creative writing, audio and video recordings,
speeches and art objects.
• Interviews, surveys and fieldwork, and internet
communications via email, blogs, lists and newsgroups
are also primary sources.

5.
Secondary Sources
• Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret,
comment on, analyse, summarise, and process
primary sources.
• Secondary sources include articles or reviews found
in newspapers, magazines or scholarly journals and
books.
However…

6.
• It depends on the period under study.
• If you are researching the contribution of someone
who was active in the 1980s or 1990s, the material
s/he wrote (including books, speeches, letters,
broadcasts, emails, interviews, etc.) become
primary sources.
• The context/age is an important factor which
determines whether a source is a primary or
secondary source.

7.
The use of sources for myth busting:
Spinach and Iron
Source: Sutton, M. (2010). Spinach, Iron and Popeye: Ironic
lessons from biochemistry and history on the importance
of healthy eating, healthy scepticism and adequate
citation. Internet Journal of Criminology. Retrieved from
http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/sutton_spin
ach_iron_and_popeye_march_2010.pdf

8.
• We all believe that spinach has very high iron
content and is therefore a good vegetable for
us – doctors and nutritionists all believe this!
• But this is a ‘supermyth’ – which is
information that is created by an orthodox
expert and which is perpetuated for decades!
• In 2010, Dr. Mike Sutton found out that
because of a error in reporting a decimal point
of the iron content in spinach, the myth has
persisted since the 19th century.

9.
Fact Check!
• Do not accept information without checking
accuracy. You will hear a lot of ‘stuff’ and read
information but it needs to be verified from a
number of quality, peer-reviewed, unbiased
sources.
• Then cite and reference these sources so that you
can show (a) that you have read widely and (b)
you are quoting/paraphrasing/summarising from
quality sources. See: Plagiarism LibGuide

10.
Web and Library Sources
Web Resources
• Unreliable
• Not always current
• Not always by an authority
• Not always suitable for
academic unless available
from .gov, .ac, .edu, .org
• Often too general or too
detailed for undergraduate
studies
• Risky option
Library Resources
• Recommended by your
tutors
• Vetted for quality(peer-
reviewed)
• Specifically purchased for
academic use
• Specific to subjects taught
at the university
• Many offer in-built citation
tools
• Safer option

11.
UCA LibGuides

12.
Searching
• The Library Catalogue includes print and
electronic resources (eBooks, eJournals,
eMagazines etc.)
• Use this as your first port of call.
• There are two searches – Quick Search and
Advanced Search
• The Quick Search is the basic search which
may give you too many results e.g.

13.
Quick Search
• A search for ‘history’ in UCA Library gives you
over 1 million results
• If you widen the search to include other
libraries, you will get 18 million results
• If you search on Google, you will get 4 billion
results.
Tip! Too many results means your search is too
general

14.
Advanced Search
• Gives you the option to be more specific and
therefore get more relevant results
• The default is a ‘keyword’ search but if you
want to get even more specific, select ‘title’ so
that only results with your search term in the
title are shown.
• You can also combine search terms using
Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT e.g.

15.
Boolean Operators
AND = allows you to combine search terms e.g.
“Silk Road”1 AND Transport*2
OR = use with synonyms e.g. Transport* OR Camel* OR Horse*
NOT = “Book Review” [Don’t show book reviews]
1 Quotations around terms e.g. “Silk Road” will make the system search for the words
as they appear, that is next to each other. This is called a “phrase search”
2 An asterisk * after the root tells the system to bring up all the permutations of the
word e.g. transport, transporting, transportation etc. in the example above.

16.
Advanced Search Example
kw: “Silk Road” AND kw: Transport* = 13 results
(1 book (in print and in stock at Naryn) and 12
articles)

17.
Journal Articles
• The articles are in not in date order, so sort
them first by newest first.
• Also see that there are some that are peer-
reviewed and have this symbol

18.
Jidong, Y. (2015). Transportation, boarding, lodging, and trade
along the early silk road: A preliminary study of the xuanquan
manuscripts. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 135(3)
APA 6th ed.

19.
The Craap Test
• Current - More likely the most recent ideas or opinions about the
subject or hypothesis..
• Relevant- Relevant to the subject being studied and/or the research
being undertaken
• Authority – Usually by a person who has some educational
background, usually an expert who can be relied on to give a
scholarly opinion with plenty of references that either agree with
his/her work or contradict his/her work. Therefore, free of biases,
in theory!
• Accurate – Peer-reviewed and fact-checked by an editorial board or
another expert or team of experts.
• Purpose – Written for an academic audience, for study and
research.
See: CRAAP Test- Evaluating Information

20.
• Current – anything that is 1-5
years is considered to be current
content.
• Relevant – it is relevant to my
search terms, my research on
transportation in the silk route
and the period of study.
• Authoritative – the writer is an
academic at Stanford (world-
renowned university); he has
published widely in this area.
• Accurate– he provides evidence of
research from other sources in the
footnotes
• Purposeful – to inform and
educate an academic audience
made up of other experts and the
Am. Oriental Society