When something happens how does it become
something we read about and talk about?
In the days, weeks, months, and years following the event,
people process it and assimilate it into the collective
historical record.
Why does this process matter to you?
- When your topic occurs, decides what type of references
you will use.
If, for example, you are looking up how children reacted
to September 11th, you will find mostly journal articles
and some books.
But if you were looking at how children reacted
to the Challenger Explosion or the Bombing of Pearl
Harbor, you would find more books than journal articles.
- When your sources from also helps you evaluate your
information
Breaking news may not be as accurate as a scholarly
journals take on the events.
Take September 11th, immediately following the
event, Fox and others were claiming that they suspected
Saddam Hussien was responsible for the attacks not
Al-Qaeda.
Let's look at the 2000 election miscall as an example
of how news becomes history.
Step One: Minutes After the Miscall of the Election
Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN report the miscall of the election
for Gore on air, late in the evening they rescind
their first call.
This is the first information available
on the event. It gives a picture of the general news questions:
who, what, where, when and why. It is
often sketchy and inaccurate.
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Step Two: Days and Weeks After the Miscall
Newspapers and magazines like the Washington Post, the
New York Times, Times, and U.S. News begin to examine
the information in more detail.
This second round of information is more accurate, but
it is not scholarly and the information cited may or may
not be as accurate as you would like. It still focuses
on the general details of the event.
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Step Three: Months After the Event
Academic Journals like Policy Studies Journal and
Journal of Politics pick up the discussion in depth.
They examine not only who, where, when, and why
the event happened, but also its
impact on their fields of study and the public.
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Step Four: A Year or More After the Election
Third party writers, scholars and pundits alike, begin to
compile the first wave of sources into a secondary source
usually a book.
Written looking with hind sight, the books
offer secondary analysis of the event and usually
examine the nitty-gritty details
and the impact the event has
had on the people it effected.
(In this case, how it effected our electoral system
here in the States. )
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Step Five: Two Years Or More After the Miscall
Encyclopedias, textbooks, and other tertiary sources begin
to report the event as part of the historical record.
They include both Who, Where, Why, and How
and some analysis, but usually they
offer little except a general and brief description
of the event.
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