As I mentioned in an earlier post, the initial idea of archival research can be intimidating. However, in addition to all of the useful articles we read that outlined personal experiences and advice about conducting research in the archives, we were given the 6 C’s.
Content: What is the main idea? For documents, list important points/phrases/words/sentences. For images, describe what you see.
Citation: Who created this and when? What type of source is it?
Communication: What is the author’s bias or point of view? Who is the intended audience? Why was the source created? What is the tone of the document or image? [Citation and Communication together help discern the source’s bias.]
Context: What is going on in the world, country, region, or locality when this was created? OR, What other sources (primary or secondary) might help provide answers to this question? What else do we need to know to better understand the evidence in this source?
Connections: How does this connect to what you already know?
Conclusions: What contributions does this make to our understanding of archives, research, and/or student life at SCU? How does this text (and/or your experience locating it, reading it, and making sense of it) relate to our class readings? How did you come to these conclusions?
Source: Giphy
These principles relate to some of the ones outlined by authors like Tirabassi and Gaillet. The primary difference is that they encourage us to connect what we find to our own lives. When doing any type of academic writing I think it’s easy to get caught up in that world. You read about other people’s lives, experiences, history, and events and kind of forget your place and relation to all of that. Being able to relate what we find in the archives to personal experience not only makes the information more relatable, but also makes the reader of our essay more willing to believe what we say. If experiences interact with each other (or occur over and over again) they are more trustworthy. This is something I utilized in my essay, and I’m glad I was able to make that connection.
Ultimately the 6 C’s help students understand how to contextualize, describe, and more deeply engage with the items found in the archives. What more could you ask for?