Give The Canadian Red Cross / Donnons La Croix Rouge Canadienne / Archibald Bruce Stapleton / Library and Archives Canada / R1300-33
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
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TL; DR version: look at old stuff, think about it, write about it, and teach it.
I mean besides kicking butt at Trivial Pursuit. 😉 This seems to be something of a mystery, and historians haven’t done a great job of clearing things up. The answer that most historians give is that historians try to understand the past. But this isn’t really a satisfying answer for most people, since it sounds more like a philosophy than anything else. So in today’s blog post, following up from last week, I’m going to tell you exactly what historians do inside their little hobbit holes.
Poster advertising the Mammoth Cheese made at the Dominion Experimental Dairy Station, Perth, for display at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago. Donald C. Beckett / Library and Archives Canada / PA-160537
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
This is a question that came up in my last knit night (shout out to Jessica and Rebecca!). It started when Rebecca asked me why I didn’t recommend Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast. After all, isn’t history just storytelling? Do you need a Ph.D. in history to tell a story?
This is something of a controversial topic. Look in any bookstore and you will see plenty of books in the history section that are not written by historians, but by journalists, politicians, etc… In fact, one of the most well-known history authors, Jared Diamond, is a biologist. But are these works good history? Is there a difference between work produced by historical enthusiasts and professional historians?
Historians seem to something of an unofficial motto: Death to Trees! Obviously most historians don’t actually have a death wish for trees, but many don’t see how it’s possible to avoid using so much paper. Thankfully, there is a solution: going paperless. The benefits to going paperless are endless, but while there is a great deal of advice on how to do this when it comes to research materials or in elementary and high schools, there just isn’t a lot of material on how to go paperless in a university classroom. In this first post in a series on going paperless in the classroom, I will be addressing one of the biggest paper producers: student assignments. With some preparation and good organization, every professor can make the switch to electronic assignment submissions. Here are some of my suggestions on making this work.
We’ve all been there. No one likes marking. But as a professor, it’s part of the job description. One of the draft titles of this post was even “How to Grade Essays Without Wanting to Commit Murder.” While there are some great guides on teaching the mechanics of grading available, there isn’t much useful advice on how to make grading easier apart from either having fewer assignments or providing less feedback. In the real world, neither one of these is very useful. But there are strategies that every instructor or professor can follow to make grading essays quicker and more efficient. Here are some of mine.
If there is one question that I have been asked over and over again as a professor, it’s “What’s on the exam?” Exams, and particularly essays in exams, have struck fear into the hearts of students for generations. While most professors will trot out the old adage about journeys and destinations, this does little to assuage the very real fears of students who want concrete answers and not philosophical musings. But with the right approach and tools, every student can succeed in writing essays in exams. So here are my eleven top tips on writing amazing exam essays.
Welcome! This blog will focus on the unwritten rules to history, as both a discipline, a field of study, and as a career. The information that appears in this blog is the result of thirteen years of doing history at the undergraduate and graduate level as well as six years working as a sessional instructor.
Here’s a look at some of the series I’ll be featuring:
- Undergraduate Corner:
- How to find good secondary and primary sources and what to do with them once you have them
- How to construct an argument
- Dos and Don’ts for paper writing
- The art of documentation
- Graduate School
- How to prepare for comps
- Navigating your relationship with your supervisor
- Applying for grants
- How To Do Academic Research
- Tips and Tricks for effectively searching archives
- What to do with your research material once you’ve found it
- Useful software for historians (Evernote, Devonthink, Scrivener, Pages)
- So You Want to be a Sessional
- How to build your own course outlines
- Selecting appropriate reading material
- Coming up with lesson plans
- Online resources for activities
- Developing your pedagogy
- Building relationships with students
- The Academic Life
- Age and seniority
- Conferences
- Building on online presence and social media profile (especially on Twitter!)
- Finding love
- Survival tips when moving to a new city and/or university
- Staying sane, happy, and healthy
- Good Reads
- Fiction, non-fiction, academic books, articles, and blogs I’m enjoying
- Historical Tidbits
- Interesting stories
- Latest historical or archaeological discoveries
This is the information that I wish I had known going into university, when I applied for graduate school, during graduate school, and in my early academic career. The kind of information that, as many historians would say, is taken for granted, and consequently rarely discussed. Few academic historians will teach you this information, believing that acquiring this knowledge is part of the process of becoming an academic. But I think this kind of attitude perpetuates the “professorial mystique” while also crippling young historians. I can tell you that I’ve learned so much more outside of graduate school than I ever did while enduring it, and that my understanding of the past now is consequently much deeper and richer.
While I will be focusing on Canadian history, since that’s my background, the information on this site will be useful, no matter your specific field.