UCLA’s advice on thesis statements for history papers.
Look for the unstated agenda
I have tweaked my Examples of Critical Reading, listing “the source is advancing an unstated agenda” in place of “the source is advancing an agenda.” I encourage students to look for messages not explicitly stated, but I fear that “hidden agenda” is too loaded a term.
Critical Reading Moves
My page on Examples of Critical Reading lists several techniques used by historians to read primary sources critically. I have posted a one-page list of those techniques, which I have found useful in the classroom.
[Update, 1 April 2013: I have changed the handout to read “unstated agenda,” not just agenda.]
Why Is My Prof Annoyed With Me? Expectations for Classroom Presence
Why Is My Prof Annoyed With Me? Expectations for Classroom Presence. Sound advice from Professor Rhonda Ragsdale.
My Kind of Audiobook
I recently finished listening to the unabridged audiobook version of The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left by Landon R. Y. Storrs. Not only was the book informative and persuasive, but it may herald a new kind of audiobook offering.
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Outlining in Reverse – NYTimes.com
Outlining in Reverse – NYTimes.com. Works for nonfiction too!
Cronon the Storyteller, part 2: What about the Storylistener?
Back in October, William Cronon fretted that today’s readers, especially younger readers, may lack the attention span to read book-length accounts of the past, whether they are printed on paper or displayed on a screen.
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Cronon the Storyteller, part 1: All Greek to Me
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One of the surprises in William Cronon’s magisterial AHA presidential address, “Storytelling,” was to learn of his early devotion to northern European epics: Anglo-Saxon and Norse sagas. You see, I had understood Nature’s Metropolis as a sort of Greek tragic cycle. In 2011, I even staged a production of chapter 4, “The Wealth of Nature.” I’ve posted the script for the record.
Minor Edits on Critical Reading
I have made some minor edits to Examples of Critical Reading. The old version separated “surprising choices about what facts to present, and how to present them” from “surprising choices about what to emphasize.” These are more or less the same thing, so I have combined them, listing the Cronon, Dower, and Brinkley examples together.
Scientists Need Transitional Words (and Better Jobs)
I have been encouraging my students to use transitional words in their topic sentences. Lest they think that only writers in the humanities need care about such things, I offer a passage from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s November 2012 report, Transformation and Opportunity: The Future of the U.S. Research Enterprise. Asking for better treatment for early-career researchers, this group of scientists makes its case with such transition words as indeed, likewise, and thus, straight off the University of Wisconsin’s helpful list of Transitional Words and Phrases. (Emphasis added.)
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