When researching archives there are many things you must take into consideration. While some of these things may seem almost subconscious (author, date, etc.), there are a decent amount of questions you must ask that go beyond the surface of the archive.
Past the obvious, the first thing I try to ask myself when conducting research is “what is the archive trying to say?”. This may seem like a fairly obvious question but it actually requires you to dig fairly deep into the subject. To reach a conclusion one must understand many things about the background of the archive. For instance, one must grasp the social environment in which the archive was conducted: “What time period? What area? What are these environments like and what do people commonly believe in this era?”. Without understanding these things you could seriously misconstrued the archive’s significance. Through reading an article I was recently assigned by Katherine E. Tirabassi called “Journeying into the Archives”, I learned that there are four key steps to figuring out the archives message:
- Selectivity– According to Tirabassi the first step to understanding an archive is selecting and omitting artifacts from the given collection. It’s key to understand what information is relevant when trying to decipher an article.
- Cross Referencing– In order to understand any given archive you should cross check it with articles over the same topics. This allows you to confirm, collaborate, clarify, and even contrast the given information and better understand what the original archive is saying.
- Categorization– After you have identified the important information, it’s crucial that you both sort and organize it. Finding key words, and different aids to locate and process the key points will make your research significantly easier.
- Closure– Tirabassi’s final point is that one must accept that no one archive will be able to answer all of your questions. There are holes in every article and part of conducting good research is ending having created more/ deeper questions than you started with.
Through these steps I’ve realized that A LOT more goes into research than the simple skimming and note taking I repped throughout high school. When putting these steps into action during my last English class I realized that not only do they make the research process easier but they also make it far more interesting. Considering the lives and believes of both the author and other people during the time the archive was written puts a personal spin on the research process. So to all my fellow history junkies, I HIGHLY encourage you to test these methods out. Sometimes all it takes is a deeper look to make something that used to be a boring chore an interesting investment of your time.