How to use Historiography Live: Instructions and FAQs

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Welcome to Historiography Live! This is a new community-built project to make an easy reference source cataloguing historiographical ideas

FAQ

What is Historiography?
In short, the study of the study of history. It's the field of looking at different historical viewpoints and interpretations of topics.

What is Historiography Live?
You're here! The aim of this project is to build up a useful, succinct catalogue of historiographical information for public use.

I have some really cool ideas! Can I share them on HL?
For the moment, we're restricting HL to published authors. For now, take a look at the parts of the forum structure above HL: The Great Library, and its other sub-area, the Factual Writing section. We'd love you to put essays, ideas, and theses into Factual Writing for debate & analysis, and if we get enough HL might get an "unpublished" section in the future.

HOW TO USE HL

The Setup
There are five types of topic on HL, all listed in the Grand Index: Topics, Texts, Supertopics, Historian, and Viewpoints.
- A topic is a historical subject, tied to a specific date, place, institution, etc. For example "Kett's Rebellion of 1549" or "The First Crusade". A topic OP will include questions about the topic, the positions different authors have taken on them, a list of texts on the topic giving these viewpoints, and a brief summary of key events. Where primary sources are easily available on the internet, they should be linked, but not copied onto HL.
- A text is a book, or academic paper. These can include chronicles from close to the time; the important thing is that they were written as a chronicle or history. A text OP will include the text's author, points on possible biases, and their argument in short, summarised form.
- A supertopic is a historical theme, for example "Democracy", "Rebellion", "Social Change" or "Religious Reformation". Note that "Protestantism" would not be a supertopic as it refers to a specific (if very broad) historical/religious movement. Supertopics encompass a broad range of minor topics, and should include a format of OP similar to a topic.
- A historian is a specific person who wrote some historical texts. Please limit this to published historians.
- A viewpoint is a historiographical theory or idea, a lens through which history is seen. "Demographic History", "Marxism", "Revisionism", "Whig History", and so on are viewpoints.

Adding a thread
To add a thread, first check that nobody else has done so. If they haven't simply make a new thread with the details of your subject. Try and link to other HL pages as much as possible - for example, if you're looking at a text, use the "See Also" to link to relevant topics or Supertopics, and make sure you link to the author's page if it exists. If you think a related page needs a link to your article, you'll need to ask a staffer or become one (see below, "Discussion and Editing"). Name your thread with the keyword at the start aka Topic: Kett's Rebellion, Supertopic: Democracy, Viewpoint: Marxism, etc. Useful base templates can be found below:

Topic Template:

Code Select Expand


[size=16pt][b][u]TOPIC TITLE[/u][/b][/size]

[color=red][b][u]Key Events: Summary[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]Major Questions[/u][/b][/color]
[b]Question One[/b]
- Historian A, Thesis that diddly caused squit
++++ Book The First by A
++++ Book The Second by A
- Historian B, Thesis that widdly was a major factor
++++ Book The First by B
++++ Paper The Second by B
++++ Book The Third by B
[b]Question Two[/b]
- Historian A, it was Colonel Mustard in the lounge with a spanner
++++ Book The First by A
++++ Book The Second by A
- Historians Q, Z and B, Colonel Mustard's actions were necessary
++++ Book The First by Q & B
++++ Book The Second by Z
- Revisionist viewpoint, everything was Carl's fault.
++++ Book The First by X
++++ Book The Second by K

[color=red][b][u]See Also[/u][/b][/color]



Supertopic Template:
Use text template, but with an additional section above "See Also" for "Subtopics"

Text Template:

Code Select Expand


[size=16pt][b][u]TOPIC TITLE[/u][/b][/size]

[color=red][u]Author:[/b] Whatshisface[/color]
[color=red][b][u]Argument Summary[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]Possible Biases[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]See Also[/u][/b][/color]



Historian Template:

Code Select Expand


[size=16pt][b][u]THEIR NAME[/u][/b][/size]

[color=red][b][u]Personal Background[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]Research interests and ideas[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]Possible Biases[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]List of books[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]See Also[/u][/b][/color]




Viewpoint Template:

Code Select Expand


[size=16pt][b][u]TOPIC TITLE[/u][/b][/size]

[color=red][b][u]Ideas of this view[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]Historians with this view[/u][/b][/color]

[color=red][b][u]See Also[/u][/b][/color]



You don't need to stick religiously to these templates, but they're a good start and it's important to get the information across succinctly Once you have made your topic, post the link as a reply on the Grand Index thread with the topic title, and it shall be added. Presto!

Discussion and editing
You can comment on existing threads to discuss the topics, or ask the original poster to make edits. If the original poster isn't around, bug a HL staffer as listed in the Grand Index and they'll do it for you. Alternatively, if you've been contributing a while and ask nicely you might be considered for becoming an HL staffer yourself. This would give you the ability to edit anyone's posts within the HL subsection, so we'll want to make sure we trust you first.