Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
Like its best-selling predecessor, the second edition of The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide combines theory with "hands on" practice, providing engaging exercises that make history more accessible to majors and nonmajors alike, helping students learn to think historically while at the same time strengthening their critical-thinking and communication skills.
This dynamic workbook has been thoughtfully redesigned, employing a new organization that progresses from a discussion of the nature of history to confronting historical accounts to actually "doing" history. A final section discusses historiography and history's relationship to other academic disciplines. With more systematic attention to writing skills throughout, this new edition also offers a series of "Writing Capsules" focused on techniques of organization and forming coherent paragraphs.
The second edition of The Methods and Skills of History also features two entirely new chapters, "History on Film" and "Oral History and Statistics." In addition, chapter-opening vignettes add a note of human drama to the otherwise abstract elements of the discipline.
Finally, advice on using libraries and source selection has been updated with the latest in computer cataloging and retrieval techniques in mind, a discussion of performing research on the Internet is tempered by considerations of the authenticity of sources as well as a listing of relevant Web site addresses.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Wonderful and Efficiant
Customer Rating:
This book was exactly as described and so much more. It is well written, well organized, and does a great job keeping readers intrested. It is so wonderful and efficiant to count on products such as this.
Useful if limited; we need more like it
Customer Rating:
Used this in an undergraduate class at a good liberal arts school. Many students found the workbook exercises simplistic. I like it, though, because it illustrates practical history skills using real historical examples. I am aware of no other book that does this. I particularly like the emphasis on the research process (lots of emphasis on looping back between research and writing), and analytical skills (where making categories looms large). My recommendation is to use the chapters loosely, adapting them to your own needs. When I use it again, I will use the material provided as the basis for more substantive short writing assignments.
Adaptable to all student levels
Customer Rating:
I've used this book for years now for both undergraduates and graduates, with great success. The new 2000 edition is even better (except for a too-brief section on films as historical sources.) The updating with regard to libraries is especially good, and the section on statistics is appropriately demanding. The essay assignment based upon the Missouri Fur Trade readily uncovers problems and personal bias in students' work. Though written for undergrads, this guide is excellent for new grad students as a way of identifying weaknesses and building consistent skills. I require graduate students to probe more deeply in responding to the exercises, and they all agree it is a great workbook, even though it seems too basic to them at first glance!
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