What is a Historiographic Essay?

Putting it simply, Historiography is the history of history itself. Instead of exposing real events to the analysis of history, the subject of this essay is the history of the event’s history. It will cover the way it was first written about the event and possible objectives that are conflicting by other writers over a period of time. It will also cover the way some factors have shaped peoples’ understanding of the event and the history. 

Historiography is a review of the historical writings on a certain topic such as the slave trade history or the history of the Spanish Inquisition. It lays out, in broad terms, the areas of discussion and tactics to the topic. It will identify the major theorists and arguments, and establish a connection between the two. If perhaps there’s been any major change in the way a certain topic was approached over time, this historiography essay will identify them. 

 

A historiographic essay requires students to research several, and sometimes conflicting, sources on one certain event. A noted bibliography comes in handy when students are trying to locate some sources. They need to also check the footnotes of the bibliographies on all of the text on this event. There are some pitfalls when using the Internet, and if research is being done at the library, students should look at nearby books as they may find sources they would have missed.

 

There are four purposes in a historiographic essay

• Students can view a historical event from many viewpoints by engaging several sources.
• Students can show their mastery over these sources and the event itself.
• Students can develop their analytical reading skills as they try to answer why their sources may disagree, and what the disagreement says about the event and the history itself.
• Students can hire essay writing service, and they produce unique essay with their professional writing team.
  

Certain skill enhanced by this assignment includes the students’ ability to discern prejudice or bias and to assess conflicting claims and data. As students need to quote from their sources to make their point, they also need to display their skills in basic quoting. The nature of an essay using multiple sources will also require a Works Cited page where the bibliography is seen.

The most crucial step when students write a historiography essay is to familiarize themselves with the history of their topic in very broad terms. A great historiography essay is always written from a place of authority on the topic. A historiography is better if it’s shown in the introduction, so the reader is familiar with the topic beginning of the essay, preferably in the introduction.   

The historiography essay needs to establish the major intellectuals and what they used as their main arguments. It should also explain the authors’ perspective and their writing on this type of history. A good historiography should present all of this information in such a way that it will show the links between the major works. It will also put the student’s work inside the dialogue, explaining if their thesis has built on or rejected the work from before.

A good historiography essay should do the following:

• Point out significant papers and books that revolutionized, exemplified, or shaped, a field of study.
• Features the scholars who were most valuable in changing the capacity of the debate.
• Describe the present leanings in this field of study, like what interpretation is now in the mainstream.
• Allow the students to place themselves in the field for their own analysis.

Important Parts of a Historiographic Essay

In the main body of the essay, students need to expand upon and develop the key point. They do this by focusing on certain points of the agreement or disagreement and comparing quotes. They also summarize them along with exposing them to be analyzed. 

They will need to ask and answer why they think the authors disagree. They need to know if their work was based on ideological incompatibility, professional rivalry, or national affiliation. By asking and answering these questions, the student gets right to the heart of writing a historiography essay.

In the conclusion, students should briefly summarize their results and, more importantly, evaluate the credibility of their numerous sources. They need to emphasize which ones they see to be the most convincing and the reason why. Finally, students might want to convey, briefly, the insights the student has gained from the issue or event, the different sources that were used, and history itself.