HIST 299: History's Boot Camp

From the beginning of this class, I did not think I would enjoy having to constantly blog and building an e-portfolio.  I learned throughout the semester that the constant bogging actually kept me acountable for the reading.  I was asked to analyze each of the readings as well as post my thoughts on the readings.  Through the blogging process, my participation in class increased and I was able to give my insight about the readings.  By viewing and commenting on my classmates blogs, I was able to see their views on the readings which I took into acount during discussions.  There was even a time where I brought up a classmate’s blog to start class discussion on the anthropology reading.

The digital identity concept of the class has been an interesting as class has progressed.  The readings of the track girl and the guy who tried to disappear show how one can develop their digital identity.  I have also learned that social media can have a great impact on digital identity.  I have since made sure my facebook is private amd make sure to not have dumb posts or drunk pictures of myself online.  We learned that photos and videos are hard to erase.  The republican candidate bashing others that could be used by the democratic party in advertisments.  I have enjoyed this digital identity experience and am glad that I have been taught how to set up a personal blog to enhance my digital identity.

The reading tonight was all about how ethics are important for a historian. One example that he gave was Mr. Ambrose who plagiarized on his work allowing him to crank out book after book mostly only using secondary sources. For plagiarizing on his work it ruined his reputation among the professional community. The reading and examples were used to show the importance of proper research and ethics. What comes down to is staying true to history and not going for fame and money.

The Round Table readings from the Journal of American History were sobering. We talk a lot about how important academic honesty is, and there is a fair amount of warning about being brought before the Honor Council or expelled for failing to cite sources properly. It is troubling, though not surprising, to read about these concerns in the larger academic world.  Obviously such flagrant actions as using someone else’s words without giving them credit should be dealt with strongly, but I’m saddened to see that other issues such as leaving out chunks of data that don’t support the author’s argument are fairly common concerns in the world of scholarly books.

I think that it is a shame that academia as a whole has allowed themselves to become so driven by “success”, rather than by the desire to learn about and from the past, that they push aside ethical restrictions aside in their hurry to quickly publish works that will sell. Relating to our discussion last Friday about Oregon Trail, I think it is very important to maintain the integrity of the information given to the public, because the tendency is to tweak the facts to make them more palatable to the masses. While not ever Dick and Jane want to know the intricate, sometimes exhausting or gross details of the past, we have to be very careful to present them with as accurate an  image as possible, while still keeping their interest. Historical accuracy should never be compromised for the sake of reaching a wider audience- this is the domain of Hollywood scriptwriters, not academics.

The readings showed us an ethical problem occurring in the historical world. The first discussion opened our eyes to the dangers that published essays can bring. Bellesiles wrote an essay in 1966 that was published by Journal of American History but came under scrutiny for having flaws. This was shocking to read because this error shows that there can be problems in academic journals that we the public would have no knowledge of. We would accept the journal as fact despite the errors that we would not recognize. the second discussion talked about how mentors rush young journalists looking for short cuts to meet the deadline. Sometimes these shortcuts involve plagiarism in which Gorn explains. Gorn compares those who publish works on history to the young journalists in the market place to explain why errors are being made in contemporary historical works. In Grossberg’s discussion, he discussed plagiarism and the history of plagiarism. He states that it became a concern in post-GutenburgEurope and is now a problem between access and ownership. Plagiarism has accounted for false stories and sloppy research. In the next discussion a history professor states that plagiarism takes away the chance for a well developed and well thought out piece of work. As a professor, Fox wants students to not use others thoughts but instead use their own thoughts and ideas. He even came up with syllabi that told students to praise the people that have helped them but overall come up with your own ideas. He encourages teachers to do the same with their students. The next discussion is about trust and how other factors can influence plagiarism. Seltzer discusses the trust between historians and the public as well as historians and the editors. Each time a historian plagiarizes they affect the relationship with the public in a negative way and they tend to trust historians less. Seltzer later suggests that plagiarizing pressure comes from economic aspects but eventually the historian is the one that should be responsible. The last discussion talks about how effective an honor code can be. She refers to Harvard’s honor code that is voted upon yearly to keep the code instated. She then suggests that we apply an honor code to history to prevent plagiarism and uphold honesty in the field of history.

Overall I found the discussion to be very interesting. Historians need to be responsible for what they decide to publish. Historians can mislead the masses by publishing falsifications. If they are caught doing this, they ruin the reputations of themselves as well as other historians. They weaken the trust between the public and historians with falsifications. Plagiarism is a big deal too. The publicity of historians plagiarizing has a similar effect to falsifications. I liked the idea of having the honor code and a syllabi in classes that encourage students to think for themselves.

When pressured, ambitious people who have a different set of ethical values than the norm tend to respond by violating normal ethical standars. This happens in all sorts of fields, and the academic study of history is no different. One interesting thing about the type of cheating discussed in the article is that it was done by professional scholars who were trying to enhance their reputation. This is a contrast to students. Typically student cheating is attributed to laziness or even ignorance, as opposed to ambition. Obviously this is an entirely unimportant distinction, as ethical violations are punished without regard to reasons for cheating.

Tonight’s reading dealt with a historian’s ethical conduct. The reading gave cases, which involved educated and credible scholars and how their lack of attribution and attention to detail lead to their downfall. Historian Elis fabricated stories in his University classroom, Mr. Ambrose and Ms. Goodwin replicated information and did not accurate attribute their work to the original source, Mr. Bellesiles did not research gun ownership adequately and the JAH had an issue with credibility. The overall theme of the reading is to make sure one researches their topics fully and after they believe that they completed their research, to make sure that they credit their sources and to document their research accordingly.

In this “Round Table” in the Journal of American history the authors are concerned about the recent high profile plagiarism cases. Most of the authors seem to feel that the spirit of publish or perish in academia is at least partially to blame for sloppy work among historians. When academic writing becomes a competition it is easier to cut corners, forget quotation marks, or fail to acknowledge the work of others. Many of the authors also struggled with defining “plagiarism”, which makes it more difficult to reprimand the guilty parties.

The article I found most interesting was “A Heartbreaking Problem of Staggering Proportions” by Richard Fox. He pointed out that students don’t understand what the opposite of plagiarism is. He goes on to discuss what constitutes an original work. His argument made me think about my own writing. I had understood that you don’t claim other’s work as your own, but that this rule also made me feel guilty for looking at other’s ideas and opinions on a subject. Fox claims that we should use other people’s ideas in order to more fully form our own opinions and of course we should give credit whenever possible. History should be a cooperative work, filled with many different voices and insights.

I was sad to see how many historians had problems regarding ethics. Some completely forgot to cite sources which could possibly be forgivable, but some such as Joseph J. Ellis made up stories that he was lecturing. There is no reason to make up stories about your military service or otherwise and as historians, we do not need to make facts up as a way to make history interesting. There were also several accounts of what seemed like laziness on the historian’s part by not researching well and “selective skimming” sources to make them fit their thesis. I can see how this can happen when one may be in a rush to put together a work, but “selective skimming” has no excuse other than a poorly written thesis and poor research. I could also understand how some people graduate without using primary and secondary sources. Before coming to Mary Washington, I had never heard of primary and secondary sources let alone used them. Hopefully most schools teach students to use sources, but if I had never heard of primary and secondary sources prior to Mary Washington, then I am sure several schools do not teach their students about using sources. I believe poor research and making up stories can happen in every field, but for historians, it is our duty to provide the truth and their is no excuse for providing false information.

The new version of Oregon Trail was so different from what I remember as a little kid. You were able to do so much more with the mini games and the historical figures that helped you out along the way. The amount of things that you could do doubled since I last played. Hunting was probably my favorite thing to do. Even though it isn’t my first choice of game I want to play but it is a great educational game thats fun. In the end I enjoyed playing a game that I spent my school days playing.

From the beginning of the game I began to not enjoy it.  In the first 5 minutes one of the members of my family got dysentery.  I also found chopping wood to make space for more houses a reflection of how we cut down the environment for ourselves.  Mainly in the interest of gaining members for our population.  Making houses and buildings got repetitive and somewhat boring.  I do believe that games can be used as a learning tool to help students.  The interaction can help students better understand the time even if the characters are digital figures that do not capture the image of those who lived in the time period explained.  Lastly, it was hard to make decisions in the game.  Deciding whether to help a person who has been brought up on slander charge or not was interesting.  I tried to help the person but instead my family in the game got criticized in the papers.