The Modern Researcher
Transcript of The Modern Researcher
The Modern Researcher, by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff
The Modern Researcher, by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, is a guide written for graduate students of history on researching and composing research reports.#
I. Principles and Methods#
Chapter 1: Research and Report#
A great quote on the applicability of this work outside the field of history:
[As] the philosopher William James pointed out, history is the great humanizer:
You can give humanistic value to almost anything by teaching it historically. Geology, economics, mechanics, are humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being. Not taught thus, literature remains grammar, art a catalogue, history a list of dates, and natural science a sheet of formulas and weights and measures. [p. 9]
Chapter 2: The ABC of Technique#
More on the purpose of writing and how that purpose should effect what you write and how you write it:
Any account, report, or other piece of serious factual writing is intended to take effect on someone at some time. It must consequently meet that someone's demands. Those demands can for convenience be summed up in a pair of questions: Is the account true, reliable, complete? Is it clear, orderly, easy to grasp and remember? All the devices and methods that the researcher combines under the name of technique exist to satisfy these requirements? [p. 14]
Apart from the purpose of writing is the purpose of your writing:
[Your] subject is defined by that group of associated gacts and ideas which, when clearly presented in a prescribed amount of space, leave no questions unsanswered WITHIN the presentation, even though many questions could be asked OUTSIDE it. [p. 16]
Chapter 6: Handling Ideas#
This chapter contained a correction of a common quote. The context was the subtlety of ideas and quotes.
Lord Acton does not say, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"; he says, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Letter to Bishop Creighton in Acton, Historical Essays and Studies, London, 1907, 504) A slight but consequential difference,
for it allows the possibility that a business executive or a public officeholder will not be corrupted by wielding power. [p. 148]
Chapter 8: Pattern, Bias, and Materialism#
A fabulous quote in the section on Bias:
"Impartiality is a dream and honesty a duty. We cannot be impartial, but we can be intellectually honest." - Gaetano Salvemini [p. 187]
II. Writing, Speaking, and Publishing#
Chapter 9: Organizing#
A fabulous paragraph of differentiating yourself from the rest of the herd:
If your first words are "This book..." they will not be able to distinguish your review from twenty others, and they will be entitled to conclude that you have not expended much thought on enlisting their attention. The opening statement takes the readers from where they presumably stand in point of knowledge and brings them to the book under review. The briefest possible description of its aim, scope, and place in the world therefore follows the baited opening sentence and completes the first paragraph. [p. 221]
Chapter 10: Plain Words#
More on the style of writing, respecting your reader, and thinking about what you write:
Jargon, clichés, and tricks of speech, as you can see, are not simply sets of words or faults of writing, but forms of escape. They denote a failure of courage, an emotional weakness, a shuffling refusal to be pinned down to a declaration. The cowardice come out on paper like fingerprints at the site of the crime. [p. 240]
Chapter 15: Modes of Presentation#
A concise list of research advice:
1. Do not wait until you have gathered all your material before starting to write.
2. Do not be afraid of writing down something that you think may have to be changed.
3. Do not hesitate to write up in any order those sections of your total work that seem to have grown ripe in your mind.
4. Once you start writing, keep going. Resist the temptation to get up ad verify a fact. Leave it blank.
5. When you get stuck in the middle of a stretch of writing, reread your last two or three pages and see if continuity of thought will not propel you past dead center. [p. 387-388]
Preface to the Sixth Edition v Acknowledgments vii List of Figures xiii PART I Principles and Methods of Research 1 Research and Report: Characteristics
3 The Report: A Fundamental Form
3 The Historical Outlook Underlies Research and Report
5 Reporting History in Daily Life
5 The Past Is All-Inclusive
7 The Research Reporter and Scholar
8 Historical Writing: Its Origins and Demands
10 2 The ABC of Technique
15 The Prime Difficulty: What Is My Subject?
15 I Have All My Material—But Have You?
19 The Practical Imagination at Work
22 A Note Is First a Thought
26 Knowledge for Whom?
31 Hard Work Makes Royal Roads
34 3 Finding the Facts
37 The Detective and the Clues
37 Library and Internet
39 A Surfeit of Sources
45 Defining the Quarry
46 Cross-Questioning the Book
48 Professional Informants: Reference Books
51 Up-to-Date Reference Works
53 Contemporary Opinion Now and Earlier
59 Finding One's Peers and One's Ancestors
59 Facts and Numbers from Maps
62 What Else Do I Need?
63 4 Verification
67 How the Mind Seeks Truth
67 Collation, or Matching Copy with Source
70 Rumor, Legend, and Fraud
71 Falsification on the Increase
76
Attribution: Putting a Name to a Document79
Explication: Clearing Up Details in Manuscripts81
Destroying Myths
85 Identification: Giving Due Credit for Authorship
90 The Snare of Pseudonyms
97 5 Handling Ideas
101 Fact and Idea: An Elusive Distinction
101 Large Ideas as Facts of History
104 Technical Terms: All or None
105 The Technique of Self-Criticism
108 Reporters' Fallacies: How to Avoid Them
110 The Scholar and the Great Ideas
113 6 Truth, Causes, and Conditions
117 The Types of Evidence
117 Probability the Guide
122 Clio and the Doctors
127 Assertion versus Suggestion
131 Note Qualifiers in All Conclusions
133 Skepticism under Control
139 Subjective and Objective: The Right Meanings
142 Knowledge of Fact and Knowledge of Causes
144 On Cause and Measurement
146 7 Pattern, Bias, and Revisionism
149 The Reason of Historical Periods and Labels
149 The Conditions of Pattern-Making
151 The Sources of Bias and Its Correctives
153 The View from Inside
157 Revisionism Good and Bad
160 The Philosophy and "Laws" of History
161 PART II Writing, Speaking, and Publishing 8 Organizing: Paragraph, Chapter, and Part
169 The Function of Form and of Forms
169 The Steps in Organizing
174
The Chapter: Role, Size, and Title177
Composing: By Instinct or by Outline?179
Troubleshooting after Lapses
183 The Book Review and the Paragraph
188 9 Plain Words: The War on Jargon and Clichés
193 Keep Aware of Words
193 The State of the Language
195 Jargon: Origin and Sources
196 Be Strict about Signposts
198 Picture All Verbal Images
200 Decide Which Images Are Alive
203 Give Up Omnibus Words and Dressing Gowns
206 Observe Idiom and Implications
207 10 Clear Sentences: Emphasis, Tone, and Rhythm
211 Live Sentences for Lively Thoughts
211 Mismatching of Parts
214 Five-Legged Sheep and Other Monsters
216 Modern Prose: Its Virtues and Vices
218 Punctuating for Smooth Reading
222 Carpentry or Cabinetmaking?
224 The Sound of the Sense
229 11 The Arts of Quoting and Translating
235 Three Recurrent Tasks
235 The Philosophy of Quoting
236 The Mechanics of Quotation
239 Difficulties and Dangers of Translation
243 Dictionaries and "False Friends"
245 Literalism and Paraphrase
247 To Translate Is to "Carry Over"
249 12 The Rules of Citing: Footnotes and Bibliography
257 Types and Functions of Footnotes
257 Footnote Form and Forms
260
Footnoting: When, Where, How Much?266
The Bibliography: Varieties and Forms268
13 Revising for Printer and Public275
Errors and Their Ways275
Judging the Merits of a Work277
Revision: Maxims and Pointers279
Revision: Marks and Symbols280
The Professional Touch
281 The Handle to a Writer's Works
287 Revision: The Printer and You
289 The Final Pages: The Index
290 Copyright: To Protect and Defend
291 14 Modes of Presentation
293 Composing: By Hand or by Machine?
293 Advantages versus Drawbacks
293 A Few Rudiments for Beginners
295 The Whole Circle of Work: Editing a Classic
297 Speaking What You Have Learned
298 Heading Committees and Seminars
301 The Etiquette of Leadership
304 Making the Most of Time
305 A Few More Recommendations 309 InfoTrac® College Edition Terms 311 Index 313