6 February 2014 Amid a discussion of a certain political brouhaha over alleged Native American identity and the "proof" offered by the claimant, a Facebook follower quipped, "What's the citation for 'high cheekbones'?" . . .

5 February 2014 Many legal puzzles created by women we track through the past can be resolved if we understand their status at law and the language that describes their status. In today's edition of "Wednesday's Words," we cover three of those:

4 February 2014 How many "facts" in the following sentence need supporting evidence? . . . .

 

3 February 2014

The Compiled Military Service Records for a dozen men in the Revolutionary War company of Col. Robert Rae credit them with “casualties” at Augusta (Georgia) or Silver Bluff (South Carolina). Yet none of the men actually were casualties.¹

2 February 2014 When you conduct a block of research—whether it’s for yourself, a client, or an academic paper—how do you handle negative findings? Do you simply state “A search of XYZ turned up nothing?” Or do you record, in detail, the parameters used for your search? . . .

1 February 2014 Source lists—those things we called “bibliographies” in the old days when most of what we cited were actually biblios—can become a quagmire if we just collect citations without an overall scheme for organizing them. There are many approaches . . .

31 January 2014 No historical researcher can live without legal reference works. What were the laws that affected the creation of this document we just found? What were the laws that affect our interpretation of this document? Did the creation of this document trigger another legal action that will tell us more about our subject? &c &c &c. . . .

30 January 2014 When analyzing sources, the first question we ask ourselves should be: “Is this an original or a derivative?” However, this basic question is just a starting point for our evaluation of reliability. Some material falls clearly into one extreme or the other, but many resources fall somewhere on a sliding scale between those extremes.

29 January 2014 Census takers, law clerks, and other scribes occasionally delight us and confuse us with their euphemisms. The first pair of labels, from the 1800s and early 1900s, refer to two classes of women who managed their own lives.

Years of teachinganced-level research methodology class has taught me at least one thing. Many researchers are great at following citation m an advanuals but are totally lost in the thickets without one. Can you, without cracking EE, tell us what the problems are in each (or any) of these?