History Guides by Steven Kreis (www.historyguide.com)

Welcome to A Student's Guide to the Study of History. I have written this guide as an aid to high school and college students who are either taking history classes or who intend to major in history as undergraduates. The aim of the Guide is quite simple. First, all too often History instructors tend to jump right into the subject matter without first setting the groundwork. Large questions such as: what is history? why study history? or how to write a research essay are often left up to the student to figure out.

Second, the purpose of this site is the empowerment of the student. I must share my knowledge with students rather than hide it as if it were my property only. It's not! Knowledge is power, but only if you have access to it!

In general, the study of history requires certain skills--skills which are somewhat different from those used in other disciplines. Hopefully this Guide will force you to consider those skills as you go about your studies.

Remember, this is only a guide and it is not the only guide available to you. There are several guides which have been published in the past decade but very few have been published on the Internet. (See Patrick Rael's Reading, Writing and Researching for History for a point of comparison.) Given the broad resources -- some excellent, some downright horrible -- that are available on the Internet, it seems to me that the time is right to publish my own thoughts on the study of history --- And these are my thoughts. That much said, let's get down to business.

The Proper Attitude

In History as in life in general, your attitude is everything. In other words, to make your experience with History as enjoyable and worthwhile as possible requires the proper attitude. You have to be able to place yourself in the right frame of mind and that frame of mind is one in which exploration, discovery and self-awareness are integral.

History has always gotten a bad rap in part because what students remember of their experience in history classes is that sort of mindless memorization of facts: dates, events, wars--what I routinely refer to as "the history of kings and queens." This sort of history has its place, I suppose. It does qualify as History, but of a most basic sort. A case in point: go to your local bookstore, go to several in fact, and take a look at what they have on the shelves under history. Unless you are at one of the larger stores like Borders, Barnes & Noble, or at a university bookstore, I'm willing to bet that most of what falls under History is really little more than war. We have a fascination for war--I don't know why. But, the fact remains, that for most people, the study of history means little else than the study of war.

This confuses me! All these facts. All this stuff of history crowding my mind. A number of surveys over the years have pointed to the disturbing fact that Americans don't know history. They don't know their own history. Here is a typical question from one of those surveys: Did the Civil War take place before, or after 1850? Hopefully, you did not need to find your textbook for the answer to that one. But there is a deeper issue here. To know, to have the knowledge, to have committed to memory the simple fact that the Civil War took place after 1850 is, to me relatively unimportant. After all, anyone can learn to memorize, well, anything. Is this history? What have you learned? What I would like to suggest is that you learned a fact--you have obtained knowledge. But, far more important to me is wisdom. Does the knowledge that the Civil War took place after 1850 give you wisdom? Does it make you wiser? Or, are facts and wisdom gained through knowledge two distinct entities?
Some people like to read about war. For these people, it is war that "makes history come alive" (as if it needed any prodding in the first place). Military history is fascinating but, in my opinion, only meaningful (historically) when put into the context of the "other" history that is occurring at the same time. What is that "other" history? Simple. It's the history which explains why that war took place in terms of the economy, culture, diplomacy and perhaps a hundred other variables. In general, most Americans would rather be "entertained" by passively watching a film about war rather than listen to someone talk about the origins and consequences of that war.

So, this much said, what sort of attitude do we need to have when studying history? Well, the first thing is that you should not enter a history class--any history class--looking for answers. The study of history reveals that there is no clear cut answer for anything. Since understanding history is based on individual--and therefore subjective--interpretation, you must decide for yourself what kind of meaning you will attach to the topic. Go into history with an open mind. Don't expect the answer to be presented to you as if written in stone. It's not. History is not a science--it's a form of literature and the historian is little more than a writer of non-fiction.

A number of years ago I was teaching the second part of a western civilization course at a community college. We had just spent four or five lectures running through the French Revolution. The students had heard lectures on the origins of the Revolution, the moderate stage, the radical stage, Robespierre and finally Napoleon. Now it came time to review. Twenty of us sat in a circle and set out to "discuss" the meaning and significance of the French Revolution. Was it successful? Was it a failure? Did the Revolution come as a result of the Age of Enlightenment? Was it a bourgeois revolution? I began the discussion by reviewing the "great days" of the Revolution, events like the Oath of the Tennis Court or the Flight to Varennes and people like Robespierre and so on. So, we eventually got to the point where we were discussing interpretation. Some students spoke up and said the Revolution was a success, others said it was a failure. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes until one student raised her hand and said, plain as day, "Well, which is it? Was it a success or a failure?" She sat in her chair, her pen poised to write...the answer! All I could say was, "Well, what do you think?" I immediately saw a brick wall. She didn't get it. Some of us don't. We build brick walls as a short cut to thinking. "There must be an answer. What is it? I don't want to think. I want to know." So much for wisdom.

You can avoid this trap. It's not that hard. You have to open your eyes, open your mind. Tear down the walls. Study history with a sense of wonder and enjoyment. After all, this "stuff"' is all happening in the past. Study history with a sense of engagement. There ought to be a sense of "what was it like" when you study history. Really good professors will instill this sense of wonder, that is, if they are worth anything at all. More about this later.

I've seen a great many students come and go in my own classes in Western Civilization and European History. And one thing that will help them embrace the proper attitude is that they all get a sense of historical time. Yes, this does mean that you understand what came before this or after that. You must get into the habit, difficult as it might at first seem, of putting things into historical and chronological perspective. You must make yourself aware of historical time. Look at the big picture (Europe 1100-1650) even while you are studying the small one (the Renaissance) or the even smaller one (Florentine diplomacy). You must be able to eventually "image" a timeline in your head so that when your professor rambles on about Dante, Rabelais, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Cervantes, you'll have an approximate idea of how his discussion might all be tied together. I think that once you get in this habit, your appreciation for history, in a word, your attitude, will begin to show signs of improvement as well.

Another important attribute which may assist in creating the proper attitude is television and film. I mean this seriously. How else can you actually understand a lecture on say, the Black Death of 1347-1351, unless you have some real images in your head? Your textbook will contain the obligatory photographs, of course. And this will help. So too will an instructor who can really instill the terror, uncertainty and anguish of the people at that time. But, I have always found that my memories of watching Ingmar Bergman's film, "The Seventh Seal", has always helped me visualize mid-fourteenth century Europe. Think of all the films you might have seen. Go ahead, do it right now.....do any of them provide you with images of history past? Where else do our images of the past come from?

For instance, up to a certain point in time, my image of World War Two was fashioned by watching Hollywood films, you know, John Wayne, Dana Andrews, Gregory Peck and so on. Americans charging up hills toward victory. The hero, shot in the final scene, asks for a smoke with his dying breath. Blatant or subtle propaganda? You decide. The point is that I grew up with a sort of idealized--mythical--version of war that just does not stand up to the historical record. However, the images remain. "Image" as much as possible.

Here's an example before we pass on to the next section. In my introductory lecture on the Scientific Revolution I ask my students to "image" a scientist. Go ahead. Do the same thing right now. What does a scientist look like? How is the scientist dressed? What does his office look like? Is the scientist a man or a woman? Okay, what did you "image"? I'm almost certain I know what you are seeing because that image of the scientist---wild hair, disorganized, absent-minded, dedicated to truth, unemotional---are all images we've silently digested from Hollywood.

Can you successfully complete a course in history without having the proper attitude? Of course you can. But why take the short cut? Why not make the effort. Rather than go through the motions, make history part of your life. After all, that's exactly what history is--it is your life.

Why Study History?

Let's face it, our first experience with History is that it is a course that we have to take in order to graduate. As a junior and senior high school student we are confronted with American history, state history and perhaps even a general course in western civilization or world history. We didn't have a choice. And the fact that we are forced to take history puts us on the offensive. We begin to build that grandiose brick wall that will prevent us from getting anything important out of history.

The main problem as I see it, is not history itself. The study of history can be fun. But there's only one thing that can make our first experience with history a miserable thing indeed: and that's a poor instructor. I was fortunate. I managed to have a number of excellent history instructors throughout my high school years and this was at a time when I was leaning toward the physical sciences, geology and biology to be exact. I might not have been an excellent history student, but I do remember having excellent history teachers.

Fine. That's my experience. But experience aside, why study history in the first place? What could history offer the business major? The student intending to study web page development? the student taking her first psychology class? or pre-med student? or the lawyer? or the worker on the shop floor? Well, simply stated, everything has a history, whether we like it or not. Even history itself has a history. Try hard as we might, we can't escape the past. We can't let go of the past. And we celebrate the past all the time.

You may have been told that we study history so that we won't repeat the mistakes of the past. This is the wishful thinking school of historical interpretation. It's too clean. If we have learned from the past then over the centuries we ought to have accumulated so much knowledge that things like war, poverty, injustice and immorality ought not to exist. Of course, we've still got a long way to go in this respect.

You may also have heard that everything repeats itself, so if we study the past, we can be sure to know something of the future. I don't hold to this view either. To insist that the study of the past will reveal something of the future is a nice idea, but what I really want to know about is the present. History cannot "tell" the future. History can, on the other hand, reveal all that is the present. So, faced as we are with the question "why study history?" I can only hope to answer by telling you why I study history.

Well first off, by studying history you can study anything for the simple reason that everything has a history: ideas, wars, numbers, races, windsurfing, coal miners, pencils, motherhood and yes, even toilet-training. I first began to appreciate the study of history as an undergraduate studying political philosophy at Boston University. I was pretty keen on Plato, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Locke, Godwin, Marx, Mill and a host of other "greats." But what I soon discovered was that my lack of understanding of history, i.e. the actual historical context in which these writers conceived and executed their theoretical work, made my understanding of their philosophy one-sided. Sure, I knew what they had to say about liberty, or the proletariat, or monarchy or the franchise. But what was the historical environment that gave rise to their ideas? Ideas are not akin to balloons hanging from the ceiling of Clio's den, waiting to be retrieved by a Marx, a Mill or a Plato. Ideas have a history. They undergo a process of development. They change, are modified, are distributed or are forgotten only to reappear years, decades or perhaps even centuries later.

Once I realized this fact it was quite natural that I turn my attention to history itself. And why not? I could still study Marx or Mill or Plato. Only this time I could do it from the ground up, so to speak. This sort of approach makes me better able to visualize history in a different way. It gives some sense of "pastness" to the past.

But why do I bother? What's the point? Well, for me, it's a Socratic issue. Socrates was a man of knowledge but not that much knowledge. As a freshman in high school you probably knew more than Socrates. But, Socrates was a wise man. He had wisdom because he knew only one thing: that he knew nothing. His "job," so to speak, was to question the Athenian youth. It was not enough to know something. You had to know why you knew it. And this, of course, brought him to the greatest question of all: what is knowledge? What can we know? Well, for Socrates, again, his knowledge consisted in the realization that he knew nothing. This Socratic irony leaves us rather high and dry but I think there is a greater issue at stake here.

For Socrates, perhaps the highest virtue can be summed up in the phrase, "Know thyself." In other words, of all the things in the phenomenal world, there is not one so important as yourself. To know yourself means to be aware of what it is that makes you who you are. And in this respect, the one thing which reveals this knowledge is history. But people do not live alone, they live in society. And it is in society that the individual comes into contact with other individuals, all of whom are on the same quest, in varying degrees. So, for Socrates, knowledge of self does not hinge upon reflection or introspection, but conversation, hence the Socratic dialogue.

The Socratic dialogue implies that instructor and student meet on an equal footing. Dialogue means conversation between two or more people. And what is the point of Socratic dialogue? Improvement. Self-improvement of the instructor and self-improvement of the student.

So why do I study history? or why do I teach history? Well, for me it's a form of selfishness. I wish to improve myself. And by improving myself I also improve others. This classical pedagogical method is called the Socratic method. If your instructor isn't at least familiar with it, then I'm afraid your historical education is going to suffer as a result.

Can you learn history without the Socratic dialogue as your guide? Yes, it can be done. All I am trying to suggest here is that your experience with history will be a much richer one if you keep in mind that history means self-knowledge and as students, that should be one of the most important things to you.

Why Write History?

To study history is to do history. And the only way we can do history is to examine the available records from the past and then write about them. So, doing history means writing history. To learn about the past we have two alternatives. The first is to go to the primary sources themselves. In other words, if you wanted to learn about Galileo's astronomical and philosophical arguments for the motion of the earth, you could do no better than read his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems--Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632). The second alternative and the one more likely chosen by most students at the high school or undergraduate level is to go to the secondary sources. In this instance, we have a number of works from which to choose, for example: Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (1955); Pietro Redondi, Galileo Heretic (1987); Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography (1978).

Notice that this list of secondary sources pertain to Galileo in general and not specifically to his ideas on the motion of the earth. The secondary sources offer a broader appreciation of the topic. They are an example of "doing history," writing history. When students write about this secondary literature, they are entering into the discourse of history by the simple fact that they are now adding their own perspective.

This is fine, but why write history? After all, you plan to become a doctor, or a professor of economics, or a cabinetmaker or a webmaster. What good does it do you to know how to write history? Why must you do history?

Writing history will help you learn history. We have already discussed the importance of becoming actively engaged in the subject of history. What better way to do so than to actually do it? In other words, writing about history means a personal involvement with history and this will necessarily produce a greater understanding of history, a good thing in itself!

Writing history will force you to understand history to a much greater degree. Listening to a lecture, or viewing a film, or reading a monograph, or taking part in a class discussion is one thing. But writing about this "experience" will demonstrate your general understanding of history. As you write, you demonstrate evidence. You produce a logical argument. However, there are also times when writing allows you to express your confusion regarding a particular idea, event or thing. Writing allows to you to bring that confusion to the surface and hopefully, you'll be able to answer your own question. At the very least, you'll be able to show that something needs to be more fully explored.

Writing history gives you the chance to render your opinion. Since the interpretation of history is always subjective, writing allows you to persuade the reader of your argument. For instance, many historians have interpreted the Thirty Years' War as an example of what would later be called a world war and therefore a modern war. There are other historians who disagree. They say that the Thirty Years' War is an example of a medieval war, or even the last medieval war. This is where you step in. Having read a variety of interpretations, you are now prepared to voice your own. You may agree or disagree, that much is clear. But the real issue at stake here is that now is the chance to submit your interpretation.

Writing history gets you in the habit of synthesizing large quantities of material. Evidence must be gathered and prioritized. General thesis statements must be fashioned from the evidence at hand. You begin to learn about the general topic upon which you are writing as well as several topics which appear on the peripheries of your topic.

Lastly, writing history will help you to better organize your thoughts, that goes without saying. The historian must exhibit some kind of logic or the analysis falls apart. Studying history, thinking history, writing history--in a word, doing history--is not easy. No, it is difficult and requires much sustained effort. Some people are not capable of that kind of sustained effort.
Take charge of your efforts to do history. Gain as much confidence as you can. Develop your own historical perspective. Remember, the study of history and the writing of history is not a passive response to the historical past. No, it is much more than that. History involves the active engagement of your life with all life. The pastness of the past is the key to the present.

How to Read a History Assignment

The study of history means reading. There's no escaping that simple fact. And reading history can be a satisfying experience, regardless of what you might have heard. It all depends on the book you are reading. For instance, there are quite a few books that I have read which literally transported me in time and space. The medieval scholarship of Jacques LeGoff and George Duby fall into this category. In the field of intellectual history, the works of Peter Gay, John Herman Randall, Isaiah Berlin, H. Stuart Hughes and Frank Manuel have always impressed me. But what "works" for me may not work for you. Most often, it's a matter of personal preference.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard students admit that they hated a certain text because it was boring or too long or too complicated. What makes such a comment sometimes harder to accept is that often, some of the texts instructors assign are those books which made a difference in their own lives. Still, having been a student myself, and not a great one I might add, the reflection that a text is boring or too long is sometimes just.

A case in point. I often assign Modris Eksteins' Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age in my course on Twentieth Century Europe. It's a wonderful book which juxtaposes Stravinsky's ballet, "The Rites of Spring" with all those cultural, intellectual and psychological forces surrounding the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. But when my students first start reading the text, they become confused. Why? Quite simple. They expect a book about World War One. Instead, they begin reading about a ballet. What relationship could a ballet possibly have with a world war? Of course, they have to read further in order to grasp what Eksteins is really trying to do. That's why I assign this text: it makes the students think differently about war, a war they thought they all understood.

For my own courses, I try to assign books based on a number of variables such as: price and availability, length, closeness to both the general topic and my approach to it, and complexity. There's no sense assigning, say, E.P.Thompson's magnum opus, The Making of the English Working Class, in a survey class on modern European history. No, that would be a bit much. Also, I only assign four or maybe five texts per course because that seems a reasonable amount given the fact that most of my students work full time. My typical student is what I could call non-traditional. With an average age of twenty-five, the majority of my students hold down full-time jobs and many of them are married with kids. So, assigning more than 100 pages per week would be asking too much. I realize their limitations. On the other hand, as a graduate student taking an advanced undergraduate course in United States Cultural and Intellectual History, I well remember that all of us had to read nine or ten books.

In order to make the reading of history more satisfying and more purposeful, you must make an effort. This means that you must have a general sense of the subject matter. You can't just jump into a text and expect to get much out of it especially if the subject matter is genuinely alien to you. If you do just jump in, you will quickly become lost as the information presented will make little sense.

Okay, so it's the beginning of the term and you've been given your first reading assignment. Let's say you are enrolled in my 20th Century Europe course and you have been asked to read Modris Eksteins' The Rites of Spring. How do you begin?

1. Pick up the book, look at the covers. See anything interesting?2. Who wrote the book? Does the publisher give you any information?3. When was it written? Do you think this makes a difference? Why?4. Scan the Table of Contents. See anything you like?5. Read the Preface and Introduction.6. Are there any illustrations? footnotes? a bibliography?7. Can you determine the general thesis of the book?8. Read the first sentence. Does it hold your attention? Or, do you then put the book down and say, "I'll start reading this tomorrow"?9. Does it look like a good book? worthy to be read?10. Why might your instructor have assigned this particular text?

That's actually quite a bit of investigative work on your part and you haven't even really started to read your assignment. Still, this is something you must do. Reading involves engagement. Reading is not passive. You must make the effort. If you don't, disaster, and that's what we're trying to avoid.

In the example above, the text under review is what is called a monograph. Written by a historian, the monograph deals with a very specific portion of the historical record. In Eksteins' case, the subject is World War I and the birth of modernism. In terms of chronology, Eksteins only considers the period 1900-1930 and his subject matter is specifically European. When reading a monograph, you need to pay special attention to the author's general thesis. Your instructor has assigned the monograph because (1) it covers the material he wants to cover and (2) it provides a specific interpretation. That interpretation may be an accepted one or simply one that your instructor agrees with. In some cases, your instructor may have deliberately assigned a book whose thesis is at variance with his own. Why would an instructor do this? Simple! To force his students to clarify their own position and to show them that there are indeed various historical interpretations.

The monograph aside, the most common history assignment, however, is the reading of a textbook. Textbooks are rarely exciting stuff and so you need to approach them a bit differently. For one thing, they are usually the work of several authors. This means that a variety of interpretations are at work. So many, in fact, that oftentimes, the end result is no interpretation at all. You are left with 1000 pages of "stuff" without an interpretive structure. Of course, like films and food, there are bad textbooks and good ones. Bad textbooks either cover too much material or just the opposite, they don't cover enough. As you might have guessed, the better textbooks make the attempt to balance length with coverage.

Check out the textbook the same way you checked out the monograph. Thumb through the book, look at the pictures, tables and maps. Anything strike your eye? Take a look at one chapter. How is the chapter organized? Get familiar with the layout because there's a good chance the textbook will be your main focus for the duration of the semester.

If you've been assigned a textbook you should always make every effort to read those chapters which are directly related to the lectures presented in class. If your instructor is any good, the structure of the class will follow the organization of the textbook. Underline and somehow mark information which seems to be important. However, you must be able to distinguish between what is truly important and the evidence the historian draws upon to fashion his conclusions. Don't underline everything! If you like, make notes in the margins of the text. Look at the photographs, maps and illustrations. Do they help you in any way or do you just gloss over them as perhaps unnecessary?

You may also be tempted to make notes on your reading. While I guarantee that this technique will improve your chances for greater understanding, you will also be spending a great deal more time on your assignments, perhaps more time than is really necessary. Again, you really need to learn to "read" your instructor. You must ask yourself why your instructor is making you read this assignment. If you insist on taking notes from the text it is perhaps best to organize them into outline format, otherwise you will be re-writing the book!
It's also worth asking yourself how much time you plan to devote to reading your history assignments on a weekly basis. If your instructor has carefully organized the class, you should know, by a quick glance at the syllabus, just how many pages you are responsible for per week. So add up the pages for the assignment. You can then split the reading into equal sections or perhaps just plan on reading for a specified period of time per day. An hour per day ought to suffice although in the end it all depends on how quickly you read. And of course, reading a textbook takes a different kind of attention than does reading a monograph. Keep asking yourself, "What does my instructor want me to get out of this?"

You may also be assigned a book of readings for your course. I use this type of text frequently. These books usually contain a series of primary sources as well as secondary sources which help to explain the primary sources. These texts are sometimes called sourcebooks or readers. If you are assigned such a text your instructor expects that you read the selections and be able to highlight the general argument, for that is the whole point of the sourcebook. The primary documents usually become the groundwork for in-class discussions, hence their importance. Do not take these readings lightly. For example, in the past I have based an entire ninety minute discussion on a primary source as short as one paragraph.

To sum up, the only way you are going to get through all the reading is to approach it with the proper attitude, something I have already discussed. Approach the reading in a positive way--don't build brick walls! Most instructors assign readings because they want their students to read. (Then again, there are also professors who assign reading because they know they are supposed to assign reading!) Lectures are one thing. Books are another. And whether your instructor assigns textbooks, monographs, sourcebooks or even novels, the above rules all apply.

One last thing. Feel free to assess the assigned readings. Although end of semester course evaluations often contain a section where the student can assess the books, why not tell your professor as you are reading the text. Is it any good? Should it be used again? Why is it good? or bad? I've always had the habit of asking students about the books while they are reading them. After all, I need to know whether of not these books are worth using again. And by asking the students their opinion of a text is an excellent way to develop a relationship between instructor and student. I don't know about you, but I've always thought it a good thing when an instructor asks a class, "Well, what do you think?"

Taking Notes in Class

Okay, you are in the classroom, you've got the proper attitude, your instructor seems eager and energetic and you're ready to learn. Your instructor starts talking about the diffusion and popularization of science in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. You listen to the first few words and then you begin to take notes. Copious notes. At the end of 90 minutes you have literally re-written the lecture. Your hand is sweaty from the constant writing and you've filled up seven pages of your notebook. But one thing is missing. You forgot to listen to the lecture.

This is a common problem not only in history classes but in all classes. You are so afraid that you might miss something "important" that your tendency is to write everything down. I know this for a fact. We all do because we have all committed this error at one time or another. I realize it's easy for me to say this, but it is much better to listen to the lecture carefully and record only those things that were genuinely important. Fine. Just how is this done?

[1] If your instructor has assigned reading for that particular day, make sure you have read it. The reading assignment is there because your professor plans to discuss that topic on that particular day. If you have read the assignment, and perhaps even taken notes on your reading, then the lecture is going to make that much more sense. And instead of listening to your professor covering unknown territory, you will already have an idea of the subject, thus making listening to the topic a bit more enjoyable and in the long run, more worthwhile.

[2] Since your professor will undoubtedly give you some type of exam on the material--whether essay or objective--be sure to determine which points of the lectures are given more weight than others. Some instructors will come right out and say something like "This is important." Others will not. In the last analysis, you have to read between the lines to determine the importance of those points being made during a lecture. Of course, a conscientious professor will hand out an outline so that you can, at a glance, grasp the meaning of the entire lecture.

Because so much of your understanding of history depends upon interpretation, you have to be able to differentiate your interpretation from your professor's and from the assigned reading. In my own classes I stress individual interpretation. That is because (with the exception of lower division courses, like Western Civilization), I always assign essay questions on exams, exams which are more often than not, completed at home rather than in class. However, if you are confronted with an essay question which demands an interpretation, realize that you must be knowledgeable of many interpretations and not just your own, or your professor's. Of course, some professors will demand that you parrot back only information that they themselves have given you. While I regard this as most facile, you should make every effort to "read" the desires of your instructor.

[3] It goes without saying that your notes should be written legibly. I wouldn't suggest re-writing your notes after every class but sometimes this will help you understand and recollect the material better. Organize your notes into brief sections. Do not write everything out in paragraph form. If you do, you will find your notes nearly impossible to understand when exam time rolls around. Use arrows, stars, asterisks and other notational devices to highlight things that seem really important. If there are some things you wrote down which were not adequately explained then you have to bring them to the attention of your instructor. If he's worth anything, he will explain them to you. As a rule, if there is ANYTHING you don't understand, bring it up during the next class section. If not, you will be doing yourself, and everyone else in the class, a great injustice.

I can't tell you how many times I've lectured about one topic or another only to find that one or more students were confused about something fundamental to the entire argument at hand. Why didn't they raise their hands? This is education, you know. They are afraid. I know that because I was once there myself. You have to raise your hand and ask away. Embarrassed as it makes me feel, it was quite late in my academic studies that I finally understood the meaning of the expression, "the end/means justifies the means/end." So today, when I teach, I stop every so often and ask whether everyone understands the word "hegemony" or "ideology" or "aphorism" or the concept of a renaissance. And if you find yourself attending a class where the terminology escapes you, it is your responsibility to bring this to your instructor's attention. Unless you make your difficulties known, there's a good chance your instructor will never know. So, raise your hand and ask your question!

[4] Always record the title and date of the lecture since your instructor may refer to it in the future. This is good organizational practice as well. Make sure the notes follow the order in which the professor conducted the lecture. After all, your notes will later serve as a basis for reviewing when studying for a test or writing assignment. Feel free to revise your notes at some point after the lecture, usually the same day. You may even want to get into the habit of underlining or highlighting topical headings or defined words or ideas. And speaking of definitions, it's also a good idea to keep a glossary of frequently used names, ideas, and words in your notebook for future reference. You'd be surprised at how helpful this becomes later down the road.

For instance, in my Twentieth Century Europe class I announced on the first day that all students should write the word modernism at the top of a sheet of paper and every time they read or hear or think about something that has to do with modernism, they should write it down. Since the first six weeks of the class are about modernism, and they will be writing an essay on modernism, such an exercise seems necessary.

In another class, A History of European Socialism, I demanded that while my students were reading a number of works by Marx and Engels, they ought also to keep a running Glossary. Since Marx and Engels use so many words and expressions (ie., proletariat, ideology, means of production, ruling ideas, capital, etc.) that are unique to themselves and their historical period, students will become lost unless they have a common vocabulary from which to obtain their ideas and valuations.
In fact, a glossary of important words, events, ideas, and people would be an aid even to the best of students. Why settle for less when you are easily capable of more?

[5] If your professor has a film scheduled that does not mean it is an excuse to sleep or to not pay attention or to not show up at all. The film is there for a purpose. I assign several films in many of my courses and they always end up as integral parts of the course as a whole, otherwise I would never have included them. Every paper topic I assign asks the student to consider a specific film as well as lectures and readings. Should you take notes? Well, the only way you can take any notes is if you know beforehand why in fact your instructor has decided to show you the film in the first place. So, you should ask your professor if he does not tell you.

I routinely show Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" and "Dr. Strangelove," Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," Chaplin's "Modern Times" and Lucas' "THX-1138." A film, like a novel, can be "read" on several different levels. The task for you as a viewer is to determine how this or that film might fit into the topic under discussion. Again, if your professor doesn't tell you, ask!

Studying for the Exam

When a test is announced, be sure to find out what kind of an exam it will be: objective, multiple choice, short answer, essay, maps etc. Make sure your instructor is clear about this. If he doesn't specify this information, raise your hand. You should also know what material is being covered by the exam. If you haven't done all the reading necessary for the exam, then get going. You haven't much time. If you missed a lecture, get the notes from someone whom you trust.

Now that you've done all that, how do you proceed? How do you study for the test? First, look at the syllabus and note all the lectures that are covered by the exam. Next, go through your notes and mark those lectures which pertain to the exam. Next, get all the books that were used in that specified period. Sit down. Relax.

Start with the lecture notes. Read them through date by date (you did remember to date your lectures, didn't you?). Underline or highlight those remarks which your professor specified as important. Organize the lecture in your head. If your instructor used an outline, refer to it while you are reviewing your notes. Rather than memorize everything he said, it might be a better idea to re-write your notes in outline fashion, paying special attention to things you know are important. Depending on the amount of material covered by the exam (let's say five weeks), this ought to take you a few hours.

Next, start looking at your books. If you underlined or highlighted your textbook, now is the time to go back and re-read those passages that you marked. That is, after all, why you marked them in the first place. It's a good idea to have your outline notes next to the text so that you can fill in the gaps in knowledge or elaborate upon your understanding of the material. You treat any assigned monographs in the same way. However, keep in mind that the approach of the monograph is quite different from the general textbook. You need to be much more aware of the author's interpretation. This is most important if your professor intends to include essay questions on your exams. Will he want his own interpretation, the author's interpretation or your own? Be sure you know before you start studying.

Should you study with friends or alone? That's up to you. Personally, I always studied on my own. That has its ups and downs but then so too does studying with friends.
A final word or two: If you have prepared yourself for the exam by knowing what is expected, you will have the confidence to do well. If you are confident about your abilities then chances are very good that you also understand the material. What does this all mean? Study to the point where you become confident. Confidence is everything! What more can I say?