|
Research
techniques
Now
that you have arranged your visit, you should give some
serious consideration to how you are going to approach
your research. The following should be kept in mind
before you set foot in the archive.
Planning
your research time
Think about how you will use your time, especially if
you are travelling from distance or spending a prolonged
period at the archive. Where possible, bear the following
in mind:
- try
to locate document references before you arrive and
if the service is available, order them in advance.
- think
about how you will spend your time on a longer research
trip - you might want to spend a day familiarising
yourself with the catalogues or obtaining all relevant
references.
- try
not to get sidetracked into irrelevant areas, but
equally you should follow up leads or hunches; set
your research parameters but keep them flexible.
- don't
be afraid to re-cover ground you have already covered
in the light of new discoveries - you never know where
the archival trail will lead, and you may need to
return to an archive in the light of new discoveries
made elsewhere.
- make
a note of documents that you have decided NOT to use
- this is part of preparing your research framework
and should be incorporated into your dissertation;
it will also stop you from 'discovering' new material
when writing up - this can cause great panic.
Catalogues
and archival references
Each archive will employ their own cataloguing system
to list the documents in their possession. These will
vary from archive to archive and can be difficult to
understand, especially in the larger archives such as
The National Archives. Ask your tutor about booking the onsite training
programme, based on The National Archives's archival reference system.
Details are available on the tutor
home page.
Always
use the onsite help
Every archive will have at least one enquiry desk where
you can ask for advice. Trained staff, who are familiar
with the collections, are there to help - or will know
someone who does. Furthermore, many archives publish
information leaflets about their collections - READ
THEM! They are prepared with the researcher in mind
and provide valuable shortcuts to document references.
Reading
Documents
When reading a document for the first time, try to bear
the following points in mind:
- read
through the material first before transcribing it
- make sure you know what the document is saying.
- always
transcribe material in full - you never know what
will be of use later in your research.
- always
make a full note of the document reference as you
will need to cite any quotations that you use in a
dissertation; make a note of the page or even line
you quoted from, in case you have to re-visit that
document.
Interpreting
documents
It is vitally important
to place the document into its contemporary context
so that you can interpret it correctly. Researchers
have made many mistakes because they have not fully
understood why a document was created, and have therefore
misinterpreted the contents of the document. You should
therefore try to get some background to your source
material. Ask yourself who created it, who used it,
and why.
Furthermore,
the meaning of many words has changed over the years.
Try to determine the contemporary meaning of a phrase,
and if you are unsure, look it up in a dictionary.
|
