Hello,
I'm a History undergrad and I'm currently on a half-vacation, half-writing sequester in Illinois. I had planned to utilise the vast academic libraries here to write the basis of an article to submit to an historical journal, my preference being the Comparative Studies in Society and History journal - however, I'm completely lost where to start. The bread-and-butter of setting down to formulate a research question and then going out and getting to business is mostly unknown to me beyond the stuff in books like The Modern Researcher.
So working historians and MA/PhD students: what is your working day like? How do you organise your schedule? What conventions do you use in research and note-taking - do you prefer using pen-and-paper notes or do you welcome using laptops and tablets in the research process?
Thanks!
Unfortunately, to write an article for most major journals you would need to have a sufficient background in the field to which you hope to contribute. This means lots and lots of reading before you even set out to have something published. Talk to a professor in the area, see if you can get a brief reading list set out, and try to position where your paper will make a contribution. Sometimes, there will be current ongoing debates in the field into which you can inject your scholarship - this will get you lots of attention!
In terms of researching, I suppose it depends on your area of study. For my own, which explores 1960s - today, I go out and conduct interviews, search newspaper accounts, and delve into archival sources. I imagine the processes of research will look very different for somebody researching a period of centuries ago, for instance.
Following the preliminary research, I usually sketch out a general outline of my paper, how it will be structured, and the argument I hope to make. Then I begin writing, loosely following my outline and adding in citations to the research material that I've amassed. Something, while writing, I find that there are questions that arise that I have yet to answer - so back to researching I go. Through this process, usually something half-workable comes out the other end and then I begin revising.