The Modern Researcher

by Jacques Barzun, Henry F. Graff

This classic introduction to the techniques of research and the art of expression is used widely in history courses, but is also appropriate for writing and research methods courses in other departments. Barzun and Graff thoroughly cover every aspect of research, from the selection of a topic through the gathering, analysis, writing, revision, and publication of findings presenting the process not as a set of rules but through actual cases that put the subtleties of research in a useful context. Part One covers the principles and methods of research; Part Two covers writing, speaking, and getting one's work published.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, History, Research, Writing, Research Methods, Academia

322 pages, Hardcover

First published June 16, 1970

About the author

Works of French-American educator, author, and historian Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (see Charles Robert Darwin, Karl Marx, and Richard Wagner) (1941) and The American University (1968).

He presented ideas and culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques...

Reviews

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ABC of technique
1. The prime difficulty: What is my subject?
a) A subject is always trying to merge itself into the great mass of associated facts
b) Subject: that group of associated facts and ideas which leave no questions unanswered within the presentation even though many questions could be asked outside of it
c) Fashioning a subject is life working with clay.
2. “I have all of my material”-but have you?
a) A final search of material needs to be performed
b) The is for new information that was written while you were researching
3. The practical imagination at work
a) You must create a system of order as you research
b) Take notes on uniform size paper
c) Write down author, title, and page number for all research
d) Never write of both sides of anything
4. A note is first a thought
a) Do not copy information word for word
b) Paraphrase by putting it into your own words
c) This makes an effort of thought and it allows you to remember the material better
5. Knowledge for whom?
a) The report-maker never knows exactly whom he is addressing
b) He must write as if he were addressing the entire scholarly community
6. Hard labor makes royal roads
a) Writing means rewriting
b) No one can write a passable first draft
B. Verification
1. How the mind seeks truth
a) The researcher must make some decision and make it convincing not only to himself but to others.
b) The steps by which he performs this task constitute verification.
2. Collation, or matching copies with sources
a) One of the fundamental ways of verifying facts is collation or bringing together.
3. Rumor, legend, fraud
a) The first step is to trace the tale to its origin
b) Not all discrepancies signalize a myth or a fraud
4. Falsification on the increase
a) New modes of communication and entertainment in the last 50 years have created numerous pseudo-historical programs
b) This weakens the standards of evidence and truth telling
c) The overlap between cheap journalism and history writing has been detrimental to the public mind
5. Attribution, or putting a name to a source
a) The historian arrives at truth through probability
b) One type of difficulty that a researcher overcomes by looking for cumulative indirect proof is that of identifying unsigned contributions in periodicals
6. Explication, or worming secrets out of a manuscript
a) Manuscripts often come in huge unsorted masses
b) They must be forced to tell the exact story that the author intended
7. Disentanglement, or undoing the knots in facts
a) Printed sources are full of errors that have to be resolved
8. Clarification, or destroying myths
a) The myth that there was much belief that the end of the world was coming in 1000AD
b) It is unhistorical to read back our habits into a past era (Whig)
9. Identification, or asserting worth through authorship
a) Frank Anderson spent 35 years tracing who the anonymous author of “The diary of a public man” was.
b) To look for evidence is something that one has to take for granted in scientific research
C. Handling Ideas
1. Fact and idea: an elusive distinction
a) Facts rarely occur free from interpretation or ideas.
b) The only pure facts are those that express a conventional relation in conventional terms (X happened on Y date, or A shot B)
c) Idea: an image inference or suggestion that goes beyond the data namable in conventional terms.
d) History is made up of facts merged with ideas
2. Large ideas as facts of history
a) This distinction between fact and idea does not cover large ideas
b) Large ideas like the idea of evolution is a fact because it occurred
3. Technical terms, all or none
a) Every ordinary word can become a technical term
4. The technique of self criticism
a) The reader is always more sensitive to the expressed meaning that the author .
b) The author sees intended meaning
5. Historians’ and reporters’ fallacies, how to avoid them
a) In handling ideas we must watch for fallacies that words mask
b) Reductive Fallacy: this reduces diversity to 1 thing
c) Tautology: hidden repetition
d) Misplaced Literalism: ex. Lord Acton does not say “Power corrupts”, he says “Power tends to corrupt”
6. The scholar and the great ideas on record
a) Collingwood sought to re-think all history
D. Truth, causes, and conditions
1. The types of evidence
a) Records (intentional transmitters of fact): written, oral, works of art
b) Relics (unintended transmitters of fact): letters, language, artifacts
c) No piece of evidence can be used in the state that it was found. It must undergo the critical method in the researcher’s mind
2. Probability the guide
a) The historical method ascertains the truth by means of common sense
3. Clio and the doctors
a) There is a tendency among readers to believe the expert opinion of doctors
4. Assertion v. Suggestion
a) Proof demands decisive evidence which means evidence that confirms one view and excludes its rivals
b) Truth rests not on possibility nor on plausibility but on probability
5. Facing the doubtful in all reports
a) Every observers knowledge of an event contains some exact and some erroneous knowledge
b) A capable researcher can learn more about the past than a past contemporary did
6. Subjective and objective: the right meanings
a) Four reasons for trusting history: documents, critically testing evidence, probability, and that the notion of an absolute past is a delusion
b) All history rests on subjective impressions
c) Subjective and biased are not synonyms
d) An objective judgment is one made by testing in all ways possible one’s subjective impressions, so as to arrive at a knowledge of objects
7. Knowledge of fact and knowledge of causes
8. Of cause and measurement
a) Every attempt to reduce causes to one paramount cause and several contributory causes ends in self-stultification
II. Writing, Speaking, and Publishing
A. Organizing: Paragraph, Chapter, and Part
1. The function of form and of forms
a) Form is what organizes the facts of the past
b) We know the contents only through its form
c) Methods of organization
(1) Chronology: fault--mixes events great and small without emphasis
(2) Topical: This is repetitious and tedious
(3) Combination: This is the best approach
2. The steps in organizing
a) The combination of topic and time calls for transition (word, sentence, paragraph, section)
3. Composing by instinct or outline
a) Use whatever method is best for you
b) Composition errors
(1) The lack of proper order of narrative events
(2) Steering around in a circle--prose that does not move forward
4. The short piece and the paragraph
a) It is possible to shrink all of this advice down into a short piece but not a paragraph
B. Plain words: The war on jargon and cliché
1. Keep conscious and weigh your words
a) Revise, tinker, and alter
b) All words must be given strict attention
c) Be aware of ever word written
2. The state of language today
a) Some speak of a degeneration of language
b) Evidence for this is jargon, neologisms (ex. parent-ing, audioanamatronic)
3. Be strict about signposts
a) There is a continual misuse of definite and indefinite article
4. Picture all verbal images
a) The failure to detect incoherent imagery in our writing leads to the concealment of all or part of our meaning
5. Decide which images are alive: images should be alive and compatible
6. Jargon: its origin and poisonous effects
a) It means special meaning for a trade or art (this is not incorrect)
b) What is incorrect is pseudo-jargon. Words that are not definite or fixed in meaning. Ex. area for subject. Concept for notion
7. Learn to live without jargon or cliché
a) Jargon and cliché denote a failure of courage, an emotional weakness [240] this is excessively over-dramatic
8. Give up omnibus words and dressing gowns (other enemies to proper words)
a) Omnibus words: Certain adjectives that writers of textbooks have made habitual--ex. bitter attack
b) Adverbial dressing gowns: Ex. unnecessary adverbs--wholly unjustifiable, fully recognize
c) Long words
9. Observe idioms and unwritten laws
a) A thesaurus is good for inspiration
10. Do all you can to reduce confusion
a) Avoid acronyms
C. Clear sentences: Emphasis, Tone, and Rhythm
1. Live sentences for lively thoughts
a) No satisfactory definition of a sentence has ever been given
b) Think of a sentence as an organism possessing a skeleton, muscles, and skin
2. Five legged sheep and other monsters
a) The first rule of sentence making--bring as close together as possible the parts that go together in a sentence. “The wind blew across the desert and whistled where the corpse lay”
b) The second rule is: The antecedents of pronouns must always be unmistakable
3. Modern prose: Its virtues and vices
a) Prose cannot reproduce speech--it is two separate things
b) The ease with which thought can be gathered from words is in inverse ration to their combined length
4. Marking with care for the reader
a) Punctuate as little as possible
b) Do not use exclamation marks!
5. Carpentry or cabinet making?
a) A well-made sentence is not born, it can only be the result of much planning, fitting.
b) It is compared to a cabinetmakers work
6. The sound of the sense
a) The only way to judge the tone of your own reading is to put it aside and respond to it later
D. The arts of quoting and translating
1. Three recurrent tasks
a) Quoting, citing, translating
b) Two forms of quoting--original and translating
2. The philosophy of quoting
a) One view (old) is not to quote but give your own thoughts
b) Quotations should be kept short and they should be merged into the text
c) Nearly 15% of all quotes contain errors
3. The mechanics of quotation
4. What is quotable under fair use
a) Around 500 to 1000 words
5. Difficulties and dangers of translation
a) Just because you know 2 languages does not mean that you know how to translate
b) First rule of translation: The translator must understand the precise meaning of the word
6. Dictionaries and false friends
a) Second rule of translation: You must go beyond the immediate dictionary definition of the word
b) False friends are roadblocks to translation
7. Literalism and paraphrase
a) All good translation is paraphrase

[Thomas Isern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because I teach my department's required course on historical research and writing, and because I think a lot about the philosophy and practice of History, I got hold of a first edition of Barzun in order to think upstream in modern historical practice. I read the work piecemeal, but found it fascinating, both as to its advice on practice and as to its posture. I had the sense that the research historian of the postwar generation felt like he was getting a handle on documentation and interpretation. Wrestling with basic issues, but no clue as to how both epistemology and information would explode in the generation to come.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A useful text in many respects for the graduate student. The first chapter was especially insightful and even inspiring in its explanation of how and why we study history. It indirectly provides some particularly zesty counters for addressing and redirecting those who cling to the particularly pesky mantra of “those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it,” which has always bothered me, but I’ve never before had the verbal ammunition to overcome.

Perhaps the greatest flaw of this work is that it is now quite dated having been written in 1992. My professors did not specify an edition, and this is the one I purchased not realizing that there is a 6th ed., if not a 7th (if not, there probably will be soon). What a difference two decades makes in the technology sector. Card catalogues (p.48) are now on the extinct species list, and there are no longer conversations needed of weighing the pros and cons between deciding whether to write by hand, typewriter, or the "word processor" (p.348-363). The foreboding tone of the conversation regarding the pros and cons of the "so called 'laptop'" (p.24) had me laughing aloud. To be fair, I was unaware that laptops existed in 1992, so surely this book was at the cutting edge at the time of publication. Also long since resolved, is the problem of what to do with frail and aging materials as the great digitization projects have rendered this crisis moot. Surely too, will future editions of this work dispense with large portions of Chapter 4 "Finding the Facts", as Google and internal library search systems have thankfully replaced the cumbersome and time consuming days of hunting through various indexes in order to find the desired subject matter.

Technology aside, the weakest section in this work is Chapter 10 " Plain Words." It is a chapter of unqualified condescending drudgery, in which the authors leave the young writer to question the use and validity of every word he or she has ever committed to paper, while simultaneously managing to sound like the stereotypical "Mean old Mr. Murphys" of the world who shake their collective canes at school children while shouting the inevitable "You kids today...!" speech. What is most curious is their particular tirade "The State of Language Today," regarding what they feel are improper uses for the words "cohort" and "testament" (p. 227-228). Questioning my own grasp of the English language, I picked up my dictionary to consult the entries. In both cases, the definition that the authors asserted was incorrect was listed as the secondary meaning of the word. What made this finding more curious is that my dictionary (American Heritage published in 1963, well before this book) was in their footnote as one of two preferred dictionaries (p.229) that they recommended. In my mind this leaves three explanations for this rant: 1) the authors' do not like secondary definitions of words (possible); 2) the authors' did not bother to re-read the definitions (highly unlikely); 3) they were well-advanced in their careers and crotchety by the time this book was made and mid-chapter they had to grade a stack of freshman papers (my favorite option). Regardless, for me the effect was to weaken my impression of the remainder of their diatribes (of which there were many) for the duration of the next two chapters. This effect is unfortunate because the book is chock full of excellent recommendations and reminders about the necessity to be hyper vigilant with one’s writing.

Perhaps most useful aspect about this work is that the authors have helpfully included tables and charts which explain various aspects of historical writing and shorthand that students learn casually without really ever knowing the meanings behind the abbreviations. The Proofreader’s Marks (p.340), Roman Numerals and Their Use (p.303) and Common Abbreviations (p.306) are all of great value and highly convenient to have in one work. My recommendation would be to get this work, with the caveat of making certain that one has purchased the most recent edition available. With some works the changes matter very little, with this work the updates are essential.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Modern Researcher was first published in 1957 and the most recent edition (#6) was published in 2001. I read the third edition (1977). The third edition examples of how to do research and how to use libraries are a little outdated especially the emphasis on the card catalogue and the lack of discussion on computers and internet usage. I don't know if the most recent edition is modernized to cover computers and the internet.

The book's greatest strength is how well it highlights the differences between facts and opinions and between copying and researching. True research involves verifying facts (names and dates) and adding thoughts to these facts (opinions and conclusions). The book also covers the correct way to cite sources, including common errors with names and dates.

Although I am no longer doing research in an academic setting, I still found the book both interesting and useful. I often do research for my book reviews and other blog posts. It was also a good reminder on how to spot opinion and bias in writing.

[Brent Ranalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have the 4th edition on my shelf. The best part of this book, in my opinion, is the wealth of anecdotes, improbable and entertaining stories from scholarship across the centuries. From the authors' casual mention of a 900-year old murder mystery I went out and bought "The Killing of King William Rufus," one of the most obscure books and among the most enjoyable books I've read.

[João Cirilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantástico.

Dá a impressão de conter todos os assuntos técnicos possíveis para quem quer ser um erudito - tudo ligeiramente superficial e anedótico, claro, mas excelente.

[Gregory Sparzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantastic writing by the great Prof. Barzun who is still with us at 102!

[Sinan Öner]

Fransız-Amerikan Tarihçi Jacques Barzun'un Henry Graff'la hazırladıkları "Modern Araştırmacı" kitabı, Türkçe'de bu alanda yayınlanmış en iyi kitaplardan biri! Jacques Barzun, "Modern Araştırmacı" kitabında, modern sosyal bilimlerin vardığı "yöntembilimsel" sonuçları modern bir araştırmacının kullanımı için özetliyor. Jacques Barzun, "Modern Araştırmacı" kitabı ile, modern bir sosyal bilimcinin araştırma yöntemleri ile ilgili neredeyse tüm soruları yanıtlıyor. Jacques Barzun, "Modern Araştırmacı" kitabını, bir üniversite disiplini içinde araştırmalarını yapan modern bir sosyal bilimcinin kullanacağı bir "form" içinde yayınlıyor. Bir yandan da, Jacques Barzun, modern bir araştırmacının bir yazar olarak nasıl davranması gerektiğini (pratik bilgi üretiminde!) ayrıntıları ile açıklıyor.

[Sinan Öner]

French-American Historian Jacques Barzun's "The Modern Researcher" is one of the best books about the methodology of social sciences. Jacques Barzun, in "The Modern Researcher", summarizes the methodological results of social scientific development in the modern ages. Jacques Barzun, in "The Modern Researcher", answers all the questions of modern researcher on the social scientific work. Jacques Barzun, on the other hand, in a university discipline, explains the principles of modern reseaercher's work on the social sciences. Jacques Barzun describes the forms of social scientific writings in "The Modern Researcher" for the production of knowledge practically!

[Marcus Goncalves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, very good guide to writing and research that is much more than a nuts and bolts how-to guide, which is a good thing because Turabian eclipses them on the technical aspects of scholarly writing. What they offer is concise, useful direction on how to effectively research, analyze and write about a topic. Warnings against bias, misinformation and fallacies are given in the first part of the work, Principles and Methods of Research, which is the better half of the book.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book as a requirement for course in historical research. Even though the book is somewhat dated these days, it has served me well for the last forty five years. It is a great book. Easy five stars!

[Yokusun Basi]

Modern Arastirmaci (Turkish Language Edition) by Henry F. Graff (1997)

[Dorothea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I asked a history professor to recommend a book about how to do historical research, and got this. I have to say I won't be passing the recommendation on.

Here's what I liked:

* Some of the sections on how to write well. There's a good reminder that although lots of words (especially verbs) can be used to mean the same thing, in fact they can be differentiated by their original meaning or by the image they are meant to evoke. If you keep this in mind you will avoid mixed metaphors and write more effectively. Of course, this is advice I had already heard and had been trying to use, so I didn't quite learn anything from this section, and I found that some of the other sections on writing style were rather too elitist for my taste.

* The advice about how to organize your handwritten notes (e.g. how to make sure you don't lose any references) and how to organize yourself so that you keep working and get things done on time. The next time I have to write a major research paper I might borrow The Modern Researcher again just for that part.

* The tips on where to find different kinds of information in your library.

Here's what I didn't like:

* No notion of gender-neutral language. The first edition of this book was published in 1957, but the edition I was reading was from 2003. I think there are about two "he or she"'s used and the rest of the time the Researcher or Historian is assumed to be male. Thanks very much, Professor. I would like a book that gives instructions on academic writing to tell the reader that it's now unprofessional to use the universal male pronoun. Here's my alma mater's position on gender-neutral language, citing works that were all published before 2003.

* The reader is assumed to be in the United States and a native, or extremely fluent, English speaker. I don't think that's a dealbreaker, but I wish the authors had stated this premise at the beginning.

* I was actually rather confused by the authors' idea of what history is, or what the people using this book would be trying to accomplish with their research.

One of the very first things I learned about How To Think Like A Historian is that it's important to differentiate between primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are things written or otherwise produced during the period you're studying. They probably don't directly answer the question you have, or summarize the situation, but they give clues and it's up to the historian to interpret them. Secondary sources are written after the fact, and usually have a bigger-picture, retrospective view of what happened. Whereas the Declaration of Independence is a primary source to a historian studying the separation of the U.S. from Britain, a history book about the American Revolution is a secondary source. But one still has to be careful about secondary sources because their authors might have been missing important information, or might have some undisclosed bias. There are also tertiary sources -- these are things like encyclopedias, whose authors don't usually rely directly on primary sources, but compile information from secondary sources into easily accessible summaries.

The Modern Researcher doesn't explain the difference between primary and secondary sources until a footnote on page 81. This bemused me!

Furthermore, The Modern Researcher gives very little advice about working with primary sources, and says almost nothing about the importance of caution when absorbing information from secondary sources. I remember one example about writing the biography of an important person. The researcher reads all existing biographical material, plus secondary sources that mention the person, plus the person's letters, then puts all of this information in order.

It's as though the authors aren't even considering the kind of work involved in researching the history of something that hasn't already been written about repeatedly -- let alone something that has little in the way of written sources. Oral history, what's that?

* In fact, there's a section called "Revisionism" that I think would have made me absolutely furious if I could have figured out what it was referring to. I think it was discussing and condemning the kind of history that uses oral history and sociological methods to add the stories of poor, illiterate, and otherwise marginalized people to history normally centered around the wealthy and powerful. My conclusion is that this section has not been revised in the slightest since 1957.

So what I think this book is really intended for is people who are writing tertiary sources -- not actually adding anything to the body of historical knowledge, but simply compiling information that is already available. I was not impressed.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are newer editions of this classic book on the practice, ethics, and philosophy of writing history, and perhaps the special voice and wit of the original authors, polymath Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff, survives in them. But this edition (Fifth Edition, 1992), published when personal computers had gained a foothold in academic research but the internet had not, and libraries were still in the process of creating their online catalogues, preserves methods that are still necessary for scholars who want to go off the beaten path and find the valuable stuff that is not online.

The art of verifying and evaluating sources and detecting patterns, bias, and revisionism is given more than 100 pages, and these principles are increasingly necessary in everyday life now that so much of our news comes to us directly, without the mediation of professional journalism.

The literary style is far more fun than the staid title would suggest. The "kick-off" quote begins, "My Illustrious Friend and Joy of My Liver! The thing you ask of me is both difficult and useless . . ."

[Laurie Neighbors · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just remembering my arranged marriage with this book in 1987 brought on the olfactory memory of card catalogs, bound periodical indexes, sour-faced university librarians, and the chalk-dusted Professor Briggs "Twigs" Twyman, a savage and aggressive critic and, for me, perfect mentor. RIP Dr. Twyman. I'll never forget your backward praise of my paper on Custer's Last Stand while you were acerbically shouting down everyone else in my historiography seminar. I still haven't figured out your angry scrawls about my preposition use, but you made me a better writer.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had read this book 15 years ago. I would have learned how to conduct research properly - verify facts, obtain sources, and read carefully - and how to organize my thoughts into coherent text to leave an indelible mark on the reader. Read this book to learn how to read critically and write with clarity and impact.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to rate. It is a very dry read that discusses the proper way to research and write. It certainly met its goal and is very well written. Barzun has a way of writing that is simple and easy to follow, yet sophisticated in its message. This is a book that I will certainly reference often when I begin my dissertation in a few years.

[William Crosby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want tips on how to research and write? Read this book.

I don't know how to write, so tips don't help me much. I am obviously ignoring the tips on how to write a review of a book.

Still I liked this book.

[John]

reference,History

[Marfy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only read a few pages and I can see I'm going to love this book, because Barzun starts right off stating that all non-fiction writing is about history. All of it!

[Ilib4kids]

808.02 BAR
Ref: Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Standard Treatise for graduate students

[Alasdair Ekpenyong · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's more appropriate that I refrain from speaking about this book on Goodreads until I better know what to say.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book on researching.

[John]

reference