Questions: Designing and Planning Historical Research Projects

Question 1

A history student says: 'I'm going to research the Black Death in medieval Europe.' A historian says that is a topic, not a research question. Which of the following is the clearest example of a genuine research question?

• A. I will examine how the Black Death affected European populations between 1347 and 1353
• B. Was the collapse of manorial labor systems in England more a consequence of demographic loss from the Black Death or of pre-existing peasant organizing in the 1340s?
• C. I will focus my research on England, France, and Italy to keep the scope manageable
• D. What caused the Black Death, and where did it originate?

Answer: (B)

A genuine research question is answerable, falsifiable, significant, and scoped — you can imagine what evidence would support or undermine it. Option B specifies a comparison, identifies the relevant historical actors, and names what would count as an answer. Options A and C are scoping decisions, not questions. Option D gestures at a question but remains too broad ('what caused X') and the two parts ('caused' and 'where') are different questions. The specific question is what determines which sources matter and what a satisfying answer looks like.

Question 2

A historian discovers two contemporary chronicles that directly contradict each other about the sequence of events at a key battle. The most rigorous response is to:

• A. Use whichever chronicle better supports the historian's initial thesis, since one source must be wrong
• B. Dismiss both chronicles and rely exclusively on later secondary sources written with more distance
• C. Evaluate each chronicle's reliability independently, look for patterns in who generated the conflicting accounts and why, and be willing to revise the research question in light of the contradiction
• D. Average the two accounts to arrive at a probable middle-ground version of events

Answer: (C)

Contradictory evidence is an opportunity, not an obstacle. The rigorous response is to treat the contradiction as data: Who wrote each chronicle? Under what circumstances? With what interests? Do they disagree on facts or on interpretation? What other sources might break the tie? This approach tests the question rather than proving a predetermined answer. Option A confirms bias. Option B discards the best-positioned eyewitness evidence. Option D literally averages narratives — a category error, since conflicting accounts don't split differences like physical measurements.

Question 3

A good historical research question must be falsifiable — you should be able to imagine what evidence would lead you to a different conclusion than the one you currently expect.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Falsifiability is essential because it is what separates a genuine historical question from an unfalsifiable narrative. If no possible evidence could change your conclusion, you are not doing research — you are illustrating a belief. Falsifiability also tells you what sources to look for: those that might challenge the hypothesis, not just those that support it. Research designed to find confirming evidence only will always find it, producing confident conclusions unsupported by any real test.

Question 4

Acknowledging that key sources are lost or inaccessible is a weakness in a historical research project because it exposes gaps that undermine the conclusion.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Explicit gap analysis is a mark of rigor, not weakness. It shows the historian knows what evidence would be needed to strengthen or challenge the argument and is being honest about what the existing evidence can and cannot establish. Historians who pretend their evidence is complete, when it is not, make stronger-sounding claims that are actually less trustworthy. Acknowledging that certain records were destroyed, are in restricted archives, or were never created forces the conclusions to match what the surviving evidence actually supports.

Question 5

Why is the research question — rather than the choice of archives or sources — the most important design decision in a historical research project?

Model answer: The research question determines everything else: which sources are relevant, what counts as evidence for or against the answer, how to weight contradictory accounts, and what a satisfying conclusion looks like. Without a specific, answerable, falsifiable question, there is no principle for deciding which sources matter, which archives to visit, or when the research is done. A historian who starts by accumulating sources without a question risks writing whatever story those sources happen to tell — finding what is in the archive rather than testing a real historical claim.

The contrast with topic-based research is key. A student 'researching the French Revolution' has no criteria for relevance — everything could be relevant. A historian asking whether artisan economic grievances or political ideology drove popular mobilization in 1789 has a specific test: what would we expect to find in artisan records, guild documents, wage data, and political pamphlets if grievances dominated vs. if ideology dominated? The question makes the design tractable and the conclusion falsifiable.