Well, we produce both books and articles. Most articles tend to be around the 8,000-10,000 word mark. Like in the sciences there is a pecking order for historical journals with some rated as having higher impact -- a highly nebulous concept -- than others. Similarly, though they are not rated as highly for entirely nonsensical reasons, a good deal of scholarly work also appears as chapters in edited collections. There is a certain belief, wrong-headed in my view, that this type of material is not as valuable as that which appears in journal, yet I can think of numerous books of this nature which include hugely important pieces of scholarship which outclass 99%+ of all material which has ever appeared in a journal. But there you go.

In terms of the production of books, you are right that this does play a vital role in the work of most historians. This is simply because only relatively self-contained ideas or pieces of research can realistically be explored in 10,000 words. Any more detailed piece of research requires a fairly considerable space in which to outline all the avenues. Even with a book, there are often strict and difficult word-limits despite the considerable additional room for expression. When I wrote my first book I had to cut about 20,000 words to comply with the publishers stipulation that the piece could not exceed 90,000 words. As a result, books are pretty much the gold standard and are weighted accordingly by institutions and bodies which assess and measure research output (the REF in the UK being the obvious example -- though I would argue that it actually still massively under-weights books).

In regards your final question, on research processes: I think most historians have their own idiosyncratic approach. However, in general, it is important first that the historian has a clear mastery of the field before any major research expeditions bac be undertaken. Without that context any further research will quickly run into difficulties. The result is that the bibliography for my first book had about 15 pages worth of literature in its bibliography (and that is a rather modest list). This helps contextualise the fruits of later research and to set the parameters of that research. Doctoral candidates (in the British system) usually spend most of the first of their three years plugging away at this aspect of their project -- but it is an unending process really.

The meat of research, however, is conducted in locating and analysing primary sources. History, despite efforts by various theorists and others, is at heart an empirical scholarly discipline. While the past offers limited opportunity for laboratory work to test one's hypotheses, there is an abundance of evidence which has been left to us and the usual port of call for the historian is the archive – though there is a huge array of other possibilities as well. The historian typically spends his or her time first locating suitable repositories of this evidence and then, very often, sifting through it, page by page, leaf by leaf trying to build up a picture in their mind what all of this information tells us. Some of this information will be directly relevant to the questions that we have set ourselves, most will not be. Some of it will confirm the picture which emerged when studying the literature, some will necessitate a different perspective. Once that is complete (or as complete as it ever can be), then the challenge is to write it all up into a coherent, hopefully compelling and enjoyable, narrative. Which is where the books and articles come in.

Hello and welcome! I'm not an historian, properly speaking - I'm an art historian, so I'm not sure if I'm the best qualified person to answer your question (though the disciplines are pretty similar, really). While you wait for an historian, you might be interested in the relevant section of the FAQ.

My own two cents:

The work of academics in the humanities will in some respects be very similar to your experience, I think. For one, service will be broadly similar, consisting of committee work, student advising (in certain institutions), and the like. Teaching will also be similar if you teach, though I think overall humanities scholars will tend to have higher teaching loads at research universities, and roughly similar ones at teaching-focused schools.

There is significant difference in publication practices, however. We humanities types do often publish shorter-form pieces, in the form of book reviews and smaller, commentary-type pieces in journals. The meat of our academic output, however, is in longer-form journal articles (reaching 20-30 pages) and in books. For many institutions, a book (or a book-plus, and for a few elite schools, multiple books) is required for tenure, though for some teaching-focused ones a few journal articles might suffice.

In either case, historical work is heavily based on archival and other primary-source research. We formulate our topics of study based on our own understanding of the relevant literature in our field (usually developed during our graduate study and honed/maintained throughout our career) and the relevant primary sources. When there's a discrepancy or gap between the secondary literature and your interpretation of the primary sources, that's a potential good subject for an article or book. Our research is usually highly accretive, in the sense that we are constantly building on, rethinking, and otherwise engaging with the work of past generations. For that reason, it is often the case that older historical works will be considered out-of-date, much in the way that no present-day biologist would consider assigning Darwin as a working model of evolution, even if his importance in the history of the field is unparalleled. The history of the discipline is called historiography, and it's a very important part of graduate education in historical fields.

What is the process a historian goes through to acquire the information they are going to publish?

On this, I would just say: historians are fairly idiosyncratic. Our individual work habits and methodologies can vary dramatically. It is mostly an individualistic discipline (as opposed to disciplines more accustomed to work in groups). This is a "feature" and not a "bug": history, while empirical, is not a science, and does not pretend to be. We cast very wide nets, we approach the final output (the writing) as the main product (it is not about the "data," per se, and the written product is not merely a vehicle for presenting "data"). It is not about "acquiring information." It is about producing a written work, which is a synthetic blend of evidence, interpretation, and (typically) narrative writing.

There is no systemized process for doing this — everyone I know does it differently. Some people go to an archive and pump out an article quickly; some people ruminate over deep themes for a long time; some people lean heavily on methodologies and approaches borrowed from anthropology and sociology.

The main commonalities are that you always do some sort of literature search (you need to know more or less what has already been said or done before), and you usually try to seek out whether there are archival sources to consult (because while our work is not entirely about this sort of thing, archival evidence is one source of "new" approaches), and you tend to test early versions of work out on colleagues primarily through oral delivery of information (workshops, conferences). Actual preparation of the written work is something that can either be quite quick, or something quite long. (I usually spend several years working on whatever paper might be produced, and over that time I give versions of it at talks and workshops. I always have several things in the pipeline, so my rate of output is relatively consistent, even though usually these are things I've been working on for a long time. Occasionally I have some reason to produce something rather quickly, but even then it is usually drawing upon years of research on very closely related topics.)

I would say this is somewhat different from the "job of the historian in academia," though — research is only one part of the job (as in the sciences). Much of the job is about teaching, service, etc.

Thanks!