Framing a research question

Notes, Hist390-003, the Digital Past, Lee Ann Cafferata, Spring 2014, GMU

Pick a topic

• Something you’ve already worked on• An object that interests you and makes you

want to know more• Take a current event and look back in time to

for correlations• Pick a place• Pick a person• And ask questions.

Question, Question, Question

• Brainstorm• Ask big questions

From your Cronon readings

Cronon models raising questions about a place.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Add your own questions

• Why are there three Memorials related to the Vietnam War

• Why is one of them such a different style from the others

• The Wall is different from other memorials (regardless of when they were created) on the Mall because it is abstract, minimalist. Why? How?

Start looking

• Secondary sources• Search on public web• GMU Databases• Card Catalog

• RESULTS???

Searches• Public Web:

– Wikipedia: basic background, names, dates– Followed up. Went to The Black Gash of Shame.

[http://www.art21.org/texts/the-culture-wars-redux/essay-the-black-gash-of-shame-revisiting-the-vietnam-veterans-memorial]

– Used that bibliography to locate detailed time line with primary sources that provide context for the Memorial through Lehigh University digital library [http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/vietnam/r3/may/]

– What’s missing here? In part: Info on design, on Maya Lin

• In JSTOR: Maya Lin, Jan Scruggs, Vietnam Memorial

• EACH RESOURCE RAISES NEW QUESTIONS

New Questions

• What was the controversy?• What WAS Maya Lin thinking?• What is the significance of the Memorial?• Who goes there? Why do they leave all those

items?• What happens to the tributes?• Did the Vietnam Veterans Memorial change the

way later Memorials were built?• And more: controversy, decisions, design

How can I keep track of my resources?

• Diigo [easy]• Zotero [detailed]