HOW TO RESEARCH A PAPER: READING NON-WRITTEN SOURCES
Reading Maps
Small area maps can show the layout of villages, the outcome of battles, or the location of mines, canals, and railroads. To read a map, you must learn the key, which translates the symbols used on the map. A line on a map may be a road, a river, or a gas pipeline. The key tells you which it is. The scale of a map tells you the actual distance of the area the map represents. Maps are an important aid in understanding history because they display the physical relationship between places. Never ignore maps in a text or other reading. It is also wise to put a good map of the area you are studying near your desk so that you can see the location of places mentioned in lectures and readings.
Reading Statistical Data
Tables and charts
1650 1750 1850 1900 1950 1980 1965 Europe 100 140 265 400 570 730 800 United States and Canada 2 2 25 80 165 252 295 Latin America 12 10 35 65 165 362 489 Africa 100 95 95 120 220 470 732 Asia 330 480 750 940 1370 2600 3430 Figure 3: Estimated World Population
This table organizes population statistics from different regions of the earth and across more than three hundred years. Reading across the lines allows you to trace the changes in population of a particular region (Europe, Africa, Asia) over time. By doing so, you can follow the population of each region at hundred-year intervals (the population of Latin America in 1650, 1750, 1850, and 1950). You can note the change for each region and the rate of change. For example, the population of the United States and Canada did not increase in the hundred years between 1650 and 1750, whereas it more than doubled in the fifty years between 1900 and 1950. Reading down the chart, you can examine the population of each region during the same period in time. This allows you to compare the populations of the different regions. In 1650 the populations of Europe and Africa were the same, whereas in 1950 the European population was more than two-and-one-half times that of Africa. More complex comparisons can be made by combining the differences between regions (reading down) and their rates of growth over time (reading across). For example, you can discover that whereas the population of Asia has grown more than that of any other region in absolute terms, its rate of growth from 1850 to 1980 (750 million to 2600 million, or about 350 percent) was much less than that of Latin America (35 million to 362 million, or around 1,000 percent).
Even the cold statistics of a table can provide images of the great drama of history. The decrease in African population between 1650 and 1850 may tell us something of the impact of the slave trade, and the decrease in population in Latin America between 1650 and 1750 hints at the toll taken among Native Americans by the introduction of European diseases. The large increase in the United States population between 1850 and 1900 tells us something about the history of European immigration.
The information in the table can be presented differently in order to highlight different aspects of the data. In Figure 4, the numbers for each region are represented as percentages of the total world population. By changing the numbers from absolute amounts to percentages, the new table facilitates the comparing of populations and population growth.
1650 1750 1850 1900 1950 1980 1965 Europe 18.4 19.3 22.8 23.2 25.0 16.5 13.9 United States and Canada .02 .01 2.3 5.1 6.7 5.7 5.1 Latin America 2.2 1.5 2.8 3.9 6.3 8.2 8.5 Africa 18.4 13.2 8.1 7.4 8.8 1.6 12.7 Asia 60.8 65.9 64.0 58.6 55.0 58.9 59.7 Figure 4: Estimated World Population
Graphs
History is often displayed on maps. The landscape of history is one of its most fundamental settings. The rise and fall of empires, the course of wars, the growth of cities, the development of trade routes, and much more can be traced on maps of large areas.
In addition to maps, works in history often include statistical data arranged in charts, graphs, or tables. These data describe:
Figure 3 shows a typical arrangement of statistical data with explanations as to how to read them.
Numbers represent millions of persons. These are rough estimates only. The figures for 1650 and 1750 in particular come from a time before it was common to conduct a periodic count (census) of populations. There is great debate about the size of the native populations of the Western hemisphere before 1850.
Numbers represent percentages.
Another way of presenting these population data is in the form of a graph. The more detailed the data and their arrangement, the more historical information that can be displayed and the more intricate the comparisons that can be made.