Historiographic essay manual

Conal Furay and Michael J. Salevouris define "historiography" as "the study of the way history has been and is written--the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians."

Western historians generally agreed with Chang's insistence that the event - long a mere footnote in the popular historiography of World War II - deserved larger notice, but some criticized her for displaying personal bias as well as historical inaccuracies and methodological weaknesses of various sorts.

In order to trace historiography adequately, you will need to analyze approximately 18 to 24 secondary sources. The list should include works covering the general field in which you are working, as well as sources specifically addressing your more narrow historical topic.

A traditional "content" research paper focuses on an actual historical event, process, or question. We refer to the scholarship (secondary sources) written about an event, process, or historical question as historiography. You examine the debates, questions, and positions relating to interpretations of past events.