Help for how to reference historians in essay (1 Viewer)

[grovy_girl11000]

Hi ,

I've just been given my first modern history essay.

The question is : Was the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) beneficial to Japanese society ? Make reference to the effects on specific groups in Japanese society and support your aurgument with evidence.

I'm required to :
- use PRIMARY and SECONDARY sources
- refer to the works of at least 3 historians in resarching this topic
- Provide in-text referencing & a bibliography

This is the first time I've ever been given an essay for history, the only other essays I've written have been english ones - on the themes, techniques etc. What I'm not sure about is what it means by refering to the works of historians? I'd just like to know how I refer to/include the work of historians in my essay & how I use primary & secondary sources. Where & how do you stick them in ?

If anyone would be able to help expalin this to me or give me an example it'd be great. Any help would be very greatly appreciated. Thanks !

 

[rama_v]

For primary and secondary sources you would first introduce them, like for example "this can be seen in the source entitled"blah blah blah"..." and you would include a footnote on where you found the source (most likely a website or book). Same goes for historians - just introduce them by their full name the first time in the essay, and then when referring to them again just use their last name.

For example you might say "Clearly world war one invovled total war, as supported by Historian Bean, who, when explains "...." "

Any quotes or paraphrasign that you use would also have to be footnoted with the source and page number clearly visible.

In your bibliography you include EVERYTHING you looked at (Even if u didnt use any information out of it).

 

[leetom]

Don't underestimate the importance of the bibliography...

 

[MissSavage29]

ohk - history essays are very different to english ones so i can see why it can be a little overwhelming.

With evidence in history essays what you are looking for a different historians opinions regarding your topic. So you may have a historians saying that the Meiji Restoration was benificial and another saying it was not - and you would explore their arguments regarding this. To work your quotes in you would say something like

The Meiji restoration was benificial to Japanese society, this is seen through (example of why). Historian x stated that "quote on why it was benificial that links to your example." (Then you would have a footnote) Then go one to explore this idea within your paragraph - showing why it was important, if any other evidence links to it - etc etc.

Primary sources - being those from the period - are very good in backing up what the secondary sources are saying and are essential to use because they show a veiw from the period. Say you had something like a diary entry from a peasent during the period (i should jsut point out now i didn't study this area so i'm not sure about the facts - this is just a fictional example) you could say something like - this diary entry from ____(Date___ was written by a peasent, it provides an indicative look into how some aspects of Japanese society viewed the Meiji Restoration. The you would quote hte source adn discuss what it is saying - usually some 2ndary historian would have something similar to say - so you could include that as well.

As for referencing historians, when you paraphrase an argument you should include the name of hte historian in your actually essay text (you wouldn't do this at uni but for High School i found that they would rather you do this) and you need to footnote all quotes and paraphrased ideas - as well as any facts that you include.
Footnoting is as follows - the stuff in italics is meant to be in italics in your footnotes also

Secondary Sources;
Last Name, First Initial., Name of the Text, Publisher, Year Published, page

Primary Sources - (note these are usually [not always] found in a text book or another secondary source so they have a slightly different way of footnoting them.)

Last Name, First Intial., "Name of the Text," Publisher, Year Published, page in First Intial, Last Name., Name of the Text" Publisher, Year Published, page

Edited Books
Lastly if your book has an editor it is slightly different again

Last Name, First Initial. (ed)., Name of the Text, Publisher, Year Published, page

Internet Sites - there are several history websites on the net so i'll add this to help out.

Name of the site, Name of the Source, Date of the Source, <address> accessed on (date)
This is a website footnote from one of my essays just to give you an example otherwise it doesn't seem to make sense
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, The Treaty of Westphalia, October 24, 1648 Section LXXXVI <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/westphal.htm> accessed on 5 June 2005


With your bibliography you should include every source that is footnoted in your essay - but not every source that you looked at - if its not included in your essay your teacher will a) wonder why you did not bother to use the information if you found it. b) think that you may have plagerised the information and not bothered to reference it in your essay
While including everything you looked at may give you an impressive looking bibliography most (not all i admit) history teachers will not be that impressed because it means that you haven't used all the information correctly.

With your bibliography make sure that you seperate your primary and secondary sources - seperate books from internet sites etc.