How accurate are your sources?

The Columbia Journalism Review recently profiled the "Tilburg Checkers", a group of Dutch Journalism students whose fact-checking skills are being honed through an intensive course of re-fact checking mainstream press articles - an astonishing amount of which are incorrect in some way or another.

This article certainly applies to history as well. In researching my Master's thesis, I found mistakes which ran the gamut from:

CONFUSION - for example, Patricia Clavin and Jens-Wilhelm Wessels' ("Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Understanding the Work of its Economic and Financial Organisation." Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (2005), 490) indictment of sloppy research on behalf of economic historians:

They often write of ‘Geneva-based ILO-LON economists’, although many of the League reports originated from committees comprising government representatives, such as the Delegation on Economic Depressions. League officials, League economists, members of the International Labour Organisation, League committees and delegations comprising national representatives are frequently, and confusingly, lumped together See Andres M. Endres and Grant A. Fleming, International Organisations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

To MISAPPROPRIATED ERRORS - such as assuming the title of a person, as seemingly presented in official sources, was indeed their title - without further checking.

In my professional experience i've even copyedited works who employed primary sources in their own way, mixing and re-ordering the quotation until it bore little resemblance to the original!

How frequently do you find mistakes in your sources? How do you address them in your research? Let us know!

Digitized archives

A recent article in the New York Times talks about some recent grants by the Levy Foundation to private organisations or institutions to digitize their archives. It emphasizes the positive, that such digitization is unearthing works which were previously uncataloged.

If you are a researcher that had worked with both paper and digital archives, what are your thoughts? Is it possible to conduct comprehensive research from digital archives alone, or must one imperatively see the paper in person?

Public Lecture: Global migration and the crisis: Do we still need immigrants now?

From the Programme for the Study of Global Migration:

Global migration and the crisis: Do we still need immigrants now?

Philippe Legrain, Journalist, Writer and Visiting Fellow at the European Institute (LSE)

Monday 26 October 2009, 12:15

Location: Room CV 342 (third floor)
La Voie Creuse, 16 - 1202 Geneva

An event organized with the Editions Markus Haller, publisher of the French version of Mr. Legrain’s book Immigrants - Your Country Needs Them/Immigrants - un bien nécessaire.

The library: making your research easier

The HEID library recently updated its landing page, as well as added some new tools for research, the most interesting of which is a downloadable toolbar with quick links to the Geneva library catalog, the UNIGE A to Z journal database, database listings, etc. I've been using it for a few days now, and I can attest that it really saves time!

What inspires your research?

It's not exactly international history and politics, but interesting nevertheless:

September's National Geographic had a fascinating story about a non-historian who created the Mannahatta Project - an effort to re-envision Manhattan as it was before its discovery by Henry Hudson in 1609 - after seeing an historical map in a coffee table book.

This begs the question: what sources inspire you? Have you found a great research topic in an unusual place? Let us know!

Welcome back!

After a three month summer vacation, welcome back returning IHP students, and welcome to all new students!

I will take this opportunity to shill for contributors to the blog - anyone from the IHP section - students, professors, etc. - can contribute content - thoughts on the news, information about side projects, questions about methodology, reports (like Fiona Ziegler's excellent contribution from January), other topics - there aren't really too many restrictions on what can appear here! And there is no set schedule - if you have a one-off piece, we'd be happy to have it. Or if you would like to start a column, that is great as well! Contact me at jaci.eisenberg(a)graduateinstitute.ch and I will arrange for blog posting access.

One more thing: I came across an interesting article in Harper's magazine the other day by Mark Slouka ("Dehumanized: when math and science rule the school", September 2009) on the overemphasis on math and science in American higher education, to the detriment of the humanities. While the debate could go on for ages as to whether history is more social science or included within the humanities, his take on the ramification of favoring fields of study whose output is easier to turn into a professional field (say a math major becoming an accountant) than those where it is more difficult (like literature, history, or political science) is worth a read. You can access the link here, although to read the complete article you will need a login. If anyone is interested I would be more than happy to lend them my copy.

See you in class!

Memoire advice for 1st years

The 2nd year IHP class, in the thick of writing their mémoires, would like to offer this advice to the 1st years:

NOW:
- Look for a professor to advise you NOW because they are (as well as several of you) are gone during the summer. A letter will arrive shortly by mail notifying you that you will need to provide the name of your professor and your topic at the very beginning of September.
- Pick a topic you like because to work one year on a single topic is difficult otherwise.

SOON:
- Create a comprehensive bibliography early on and ensure the books are available in the RERO network. If not you might need to order them through Inter-Library Loan or request that the library purchase the book, both of which take a while and can make you lose time.

LATER:
- Take at least one class or have a part-time internship or job in your spring semester so you have something to keep you on schedule – otherwise the mémoire can devour your days.
- Plan on submitting a first full final version in May or June of your 2nd year so you are able to correct it afterwards.

ALWAYS:
- Be organized!

More to follow....