Histories for a New South Africa: HI 494 Research Guide
Assignment: A 20 page research paper on a topic related to the history of South Africa from the 17th through the 20th centuries that reflects new historiographical perspectives on transformations in South African society, how modern South Africa developed, and how events affect the kinds of history we read, write, and want to believe.
Locally available primary sources should be exploited in this paper, along with critical reading of secondary sources.
This guide will suggest some strategies for finding information and developing your research.
What have scholars said? Where did they find their sources?
What are primary sources? Where can you find them? How can you use them?
"He said/She said' ... weighing the evidence, building a case.
Citing sources, giving credit where credit is due.
Choose your topic
Select a topic that interests you. Curiosity will spur you to do better research than duty or the desire for a good grade.
Start with what you know and build outwards. It doesn't matter how much or how little you know when you begin. What matters is how much you know when you finish.
If all you know about South Africa right now is Nelson Mandela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, that's okay. Do some reading. A good place to start is African South of the Sahara (AFR ST DT 351 F71) in the African Studies Library. This gives a good capsule summary of the history and current conditions of African nations.
For year-by-year reports on events, look at Africa Contemporary Record (AFR ST DT 1 F691). Latest years will be in ASL; earlier volumes in the stacks on the 6th floor. The South African Institute of Race Relations, an independent research institute published an annual Survey of Race Relations throughout the apartheid era. (DT 763 F535) These volumes are located in the stacks on the 6th floor.
Before you commit a lot of time to your research, check to be sure there will be enough material on your topic. For this paper, you will need to have primary sources. (Read the section below for a definition of primary sources, and look at the Archives and Primary Sources Guide for more information. While going first to a collection of primary sources can give you some ideas, it's usually better to begin with secondary sources (books and journal articles), especially those whose authors have used and cite primary sources. It can be hard to search primary sources for specific topics, and getting this kind of guidance can be very helpful.
Ask questions
Historical research is a bit like newspaper reporting: as you read, keep asking "what, who, where, when?" Once you've answered those questions about past events - not always as straightforward a task as it might seem - for this paper you will go on to the real questions: "why?" and "what effect did these events have?"
As you ask yourself - and the material - questions, you will define the topic. For this assignment you need a topic that is focused enough to be answered within the scope of the paper. If your question is "What happened in South Africa in the 20th century?", you'll have to write a book. Even a more focused topic like "Censorship in South Africa" may prove to be too broad. The early part of your research and reading will be exploration to determine just what your final topic will be.
The more effort you put into this first phase, the easier writing the actual paper will be.
What have scholars said? Where did they find their sources?
Academic writers gather information and formulate theories that explain events. As you read, build the habit of reading the notes and bibliographies. If a writer makes an assertion, check the sources his/her case is built on. Try to determine the qualifications and possible bias of the author. Look at the author's other works; find some reviews of his/her books.
If a book by author A makes a point and a book by author B disagrees, go to their sources and decide for yourself who is right. Maybe neither one is right!
Look for both books and articles.
Books look at the big picture, such as the history of South Africa, a history of Native policy in South Africa, reminiscences of life in South Africa. To find books, use the library catalog. Your search strategy will depend on the topic. Using a word search - perhaps with a place name like Soweto or a personal name like Nelson Mandela - will cast a broad net, and then you can explore by checking the subject headings used for books that seem relevant. Searching for abstract terms like racism or attitudes may require a lot of experimentation with terms.
Articles zero in on narrower topics, such as analysis of life after apartheid as portrayed in movies, comic books and literature; foreign labor in Johannesburg; the rhetoric of Nelson Mandela. To find articles, use the indexes focused on history and/or Africa. Sometimes the index will connect you directly to full text; often you will have to print or copy the citation, then check the library catalog to locate the journal in the library. Some of the best indexes for this paper will be:
You need both. You can't zero in on a topic yourself unless you know the bigger picture, but you won't always find the details you need for your topic in books. You don't have to read an entire book to find out if it has a chapter or section on your topic. Use the index in the back of the book. Always look at the bibliography and notes. These will lead you to other books or articles, and often to the primary sources the author used.
What are primary sources? Where can you find them? How can you use them?
This assignment requires you to use primary sources, so it helps to know what they are.
A primary resource is most easily defined by what it is NOT:
- not analysis or interpretation
- not a synthesis of known or assumed facts
- not reformatting or popularization
It can help to use an analogy with a court case. Primary resources are what would be admitted as evidence, such as eyewitness accounts or documents of record. "Hearsay", or secondhand reports of an event are not admitted as evidence, except as testimony of the words uttered by an individual.
Examples of primary sources:
Interviews; autobiographies; letters; diaries; newspaper and magazine articles from the time period; travelers' accounts; government documents; court transcripts; the writings of principal participants; business records.
The designation "primary source" may depend on the topic. A novel may be a primary source if you are writing about the author and her ideas and influence. It wouldn't be a valid primary source for verification of incidents. From this list, you can see that some primary sources, such as newspapers, government documents, books, etc., are published - and therefore produced in multiple copies and may be found in libraries. Others, for example, letters, diaries and court records, are unpublished and usually only one copy exists of the original document.
IF - and it is a very big IF - unpublished documents are retained they either remain in the possession of the originator or their heirs - stored in file cabinets, attics, closets, etc. - or are turned over to repositories called archives, which might be open to researchers. Not everything that could aid historical research is kept; not everything that is kept is accessible. Sometimes private or public collections of primary sources are reproduced in print, microfilmed or digitized, and thus made more widely accessible.
Another tutorial: Archives and Primary Resources for the Study of Africa: Research Strategies and Web Resources goes into a lot of detail about the nature of primary sources.
For this course, you are urged to use primary sources available in Mugar Library. These include:
Magazines. There are a few strategies to use to identify magazines with articles that could be used as primary sources.
Autobiographies. Search the catalog with the name as author. Searching Nelson Mandela as author his published speeches as well as his autobiography. Even though biographies written by other people aren't primary sources, their bibliographies may provide some leads to sources you can use.
Government publications. ASL has a large collection of the publications of African national governments, international organizations and colonial regimes. An author search using South Africa will yield most of these. There is also a large collection of documents collected between 1950 and 1980 that have not been entered into the main catalog. Ask ASL staff for help in locating these. An important document to use in conjunction with others is the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (DT1945 .S56 1998 )
One large resource is Karis-Gerhart collection : from protest to challenge, 1964-1990. This microfilm collection is housed in the African Studies Library. There is a microfilm reader in ASL, and you can also take reels of film to the Microforms Library on Mugar's basement level to read and/or copy. There is a print guide with the collection; the guide is also available online: http://www.crl.edu/areastudies/CAMP/collections/karisgerhart.htm
There is very little subject access to any primary sources.
Can't I just Google? It works for other papers....
Does it really? About half of what we've talked about so far is accessible online - the library catalog, indexes and databases, full text of some articles and books, guides to collections. Some primary sources are online as well:
African Research Central provides information about archives - collections of primary sources - dealing with Africa, connections to their web sites, and to any digitized collections available.
African Governments on the WWW gives links to African government sites. Government documents are primary sources whatever their format - online or on paper.
The ANC site includes a file of historical documents as well as recent publications and information.
Digital Imaging South Africa (DISA) has digitized a large number of journals from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
Africa South of the Sahara give links and descriptions of web site pertaining to African countries and topics.
Electronic Journals and Newspapers on Africa provides links to hundreds of newspapers and journals from and about Africa.
As for Google? It's great for looking for sites of agencies and organizations: Black Sash or the AIDS Foundation of South Africa. For just searching, though, you come up with some weird stuff. Once you've got the basics covered, you can certainly dig around with Google. But check everything you find very carefully. Otherwise you'll be reading about golf in Soweto, or a Scientology page.
Weighing the Evidence, Building a Case
This is where your real work begins. Not every eyewitness recalls or reports the same thing. Is one of them lying? Is one of them mistaken? Are they all wrong? Remember the tale about the blind men and the elephant.
Do you agree with the "whys" postulated by other writers? How do you think events in the past have influenced the present?
Citing Sources
Authors cite the sources where they found facts, figures, ideas, and quotations so that they give credit to the original author, and are not guilty of stealing those words and ideas. Plagiarism is a serious crime, and can ruin lives and derail careers. Avoid even its appearance. Cite everything you use.
As you conduct your own research, you'll come to understand the other value of citations: they allow readers to go to the sources the author used, and from there to test the author's conclusions, or go on with their own research.
There are many styles of citations and notes. Always use the one your instructor requires or recommends. If none is specified, choose a style you are comfortable with, and use it consistently.
The most important thing to remember about citations and notes is that they are intended to lead the reader to the source. Some styles seem deliberately arcane and hard to understand. Whatever the style you choose or are required to use, make your citations as complete and clear as possible. This means giving the author, title, and publication information, plus the page numbers and other details to help the reader find the item. This means including the URL for electronic resources and web sites.
Some guides to citations styles:
Use the Mugar Library's guide to citation styles, or look at the guides listed on the Reference Shelf