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Historical Research Techniques: Teaching with Database Exercises on the Microcomputer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Vernon Burton ,
Robert Blomeyer ,
Atsushi Fukada  and
Steven J. White
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Extract

Critical analysis is the basis of the liberal arts education, and computer analysis is so much a part of contemporary society that liberal arts majors need to learn to assess the veracity of computer-derived information just as they do the sources for a historical monograph. It is increasingly clear that humanists should acquire basic understandings of the use of the computer. Jobs for traditionally trained liberal arts majors are scarce, and computer skills will make history graduates more competitive in the job market. We are not necessarily suggesting that all historians understand “computerese,” or the way some computer users talk to one another. What is important for the historian, or for any humanistic scholar for that matter, is the ability to understand the algorithm, or in the language of the humanist, the logic of how a computer program operates to produce output. This is also essential if scholars in the humanities are to be able to understand and evaluate the new social science research.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , Winter 1987 , pp. 433 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1987 

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