Historical Research and the Problems with Researching the Subject of History on the Web: A Students Guide

In the new web age there is now a number of historical primary and secondary sources available to students at a click of a button.  The World Wide Web can be an extremely beneficial tool for students to research any subject, but this easy to reach source of information can also be extremely problematic for a history teacher.  The number of historically accurate and academic sites available for students is equally matched by the number of sites that propagate inaccurate information that is anecdotal, misleading and false and these are inadequate sources of history for academia at any level.  Today, for information, the first point of call for many is Wikipedia, but the information on Wikipedia is openly editable, meaning readers are unable to know who wrote the information on the site and whether the information is creditable and true.  We have all heard people state that Marie Antoinette  said ‘let them eat cake', but there is no documented evidence that quotes her making this statement; this statement first appears in Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s book ‘Confessions’, written when Marie Antoinette was just a child and this quote only became attributed to Marie Antoinette in the mid-nineteenth century.  Another myth is that Napoleon Bonaparte was short, this myth was created by James Gilray, the eighteenth-century caricaturist, who drew Napoleon as a tiny figure as a means of British propaganda during the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon was actually 5ft 6in tall, two inches taller than Admiral Nelson.  Most of us have heard such anecdotal statements, but often these anecdotes get mixed in with fact; creating a whole new pseudo-history.  Therefore, students need to take the greatest of care when verifying their sources and they can do this by always checking who the author of the article is, where the article comes from or originated and whether the article is academic.  By always using such caution with articles on websites, a student can be sure they are using factual history in their writing. 
          

Please follow the link for more information on researching history on the web.    

http://teachinghistory.org/digital-classroom/ask-a-digital-historian/24066