Exercise 2: Styles of Inquiry

Pick an historical event and find 4 articles discuss the event from different historical perspectives (e.g. economic history, gender history, political history, cultural history, etc.) Briefly summarize each article and book and the unique way that it approaches the event. Do not use AI to summarize the sources for you or to write your paper (that’s cheating). If you use it to help you find the sources, make sure the sources actually exist (i.e. find them and read them for yourself). Using the library search page, the relevant databases (Historical Abstracts or America: History and Life), or beginning with a recent book/article and mining its footnotes to see which previous works it engages with are all better than using AI because you’re in control of your own research process (and because AI searches are much more impactful on the environment, water supply, and electricity prices). You can use it to correct your grammar and spelling, but I’d advise you tell it not to correct your word choices, because it’s important you develop your own voice.