In chapter five we finally get to begin to learn about the Historiographic Essay. Brundage first talks about, much like Professor Davis did in class, the importance of refining your topic. If you try to write about the entire American Revolution you are going to have to sift through thousands and thousands of sources and if you only choose ten you are only reading an extremely small and select sample space. Almost every topic can be refined even more. Like Brundage says, even though the assassination of Lincoln seems like it is very specific, it is still going to return a great deal of sources.
We then get to see an example of a Historiographic Essay. From looking the essay over I can say the one of the most important gramatical aspects of this assignment is the ability to smoothly transition from one authors findings to the next. In this essay, the author organized his sources by the years they were written. For example, after he speaks about one source his transition to the next source is along the lines of "written later on in the same year." I think its important to keep in mind that even though there is a wealth of information in this essay it still can and should be written well and flow fluently from source to source.
Question: How can you go about refining your topic?
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