The Link Between Agriculture and Maleficium in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
The first, and only, history class I’ve ever taken as a college student was the Honors Seminar: Witchcraft, Gender, and Society in Preindustrial Europe. As a biomedical sciences major, most of my classes have to do with math, biology, or chemistry, so I decided to switch it up, and what better way to do that than with a class about witches? I thought I was only going to be learning about witches, but I soon found out the topic taught me a lot about early European society, like gender roles, religion, and economics. This class also allowed me to further refine my information literacy and information synthesis skills. For our final research project in the class, we were allowed to choose any topic of our choice relating to the class. I chose to study how agriculture affected witchcraft accusations.
The first skill this project allowed me to develop was information literacy. Information literacy is the ability to access and use information ethically. One of the requirements for our paper is that we had to use primary sources. A primary source is information that came firsthand, original documents from history. This is different than secondary sources, which are interpretations of primary sources. Considering that our class was set in preindustrial Europe, finding primary sources was a challenge for me. Luckily, I used skills that I had learned from my Introduction to Honors course to help me find what I needed. The library had various databases that I navigated to find original documents. Some of them weren’t even translated yet, and were just photocopies of the direct source. Another challenge of using primary sources was how to use them ethically. Often, they didn’t have any authors, so I had to learn how to cite properly when using information from these types of sources. The paper demonstrated that I could use information properly to accomplish my research goal, which showed my mastering of the information literacy skill.
The other skill I developed during my research project was information synthesis. If finding original sources was hard, organizing them was even more so. The challenge in using primary sources is that you have to develop the ability to draw your own conclusions from what you are researching, instead of having someone else do it for you in a secondary source. I had to find my own specific examples of mindsets or societal trends in the sources I was examining. I then had to somehow tie all these diverse ideas together into my main points in order to form a coherent hypothesis for my paper. This process showed me a whole new perspective on research, and how more difficult it is to use primary sources than secondary. The ability to draw your own conclusions and make them fit your idea of the bigger picture gave me a better understanding of the research process.
My Honors Seminar class taught me a whole new perspective on research. I learned that historical research is much different than scientific research. It was my first experience with finding and using primary sources for a paper. This gave me a new understanding of research, since I never had to analyze and draw conclusions from a primary source before. This class also allowed me to master my information literacy and information synthesis skills of the research competency.
The Link Between Agriculture and Maleficium in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
The first skill this project allowed me to develop was information literacy. Information literacy is the ability to access and use information ethically. One of the requirements for our paper is that we had to use primary sources. A primary source is information that came firsthand, original documents from history. This is different than secondary sources, which are interpretations of primary sources. Considering that our class was set in preindustrial Europe, finding primary sources was a challenge for me. Luckily, I used skills that I had learned from my Introduction to Honors course to help me find what I needed. The library had various databases that I navigated to find original documents. Some of them weren’t even translated yet, and were just photocopies of the direct source. Another challenge of using primary sources was how to use them ethically. Often, they didn’t have any authors, so I had to learn how to cite properly when using information from these types of sources. The paper demonstrated that I could use information properly to accomplish my research goal, which showed my mastering of the information literacy skill.
The other skill I developed during my research project was information synthesis. If finding original sources was hard, organizing them was even more so. The challenge in using primary sources is that you have to develop the ability to draw your own conclusions from what you are researching, instead of having someone else do it for you in a secondary source. I had to find my own specific examples of mindsets or societal trends in the sources I was examining. I then had to somehow tie all these diverse ideas together into my main points in order to form a coherent hypothesis for my paper. This process showed me a whole new perspective on research, and how more difficult it is to use primary sources than secondary. The ability to draw your own conclusions and make them fit your idea of the bigger picture gave me a better understanding of the research process.
My Honors Seminar class taught me a whole new perspective on research. I learned that historical research is much different than scientific research. It was my first experience with finding and using primary sources for a paper. This gave me a new understanding of research, since I never had to analyze and draw conclusions from a primary source before. This class also allowed me to master my information literacy and information synthesis skills of the research competency.
The Link Between Agriculture and Maleficium in Medieval and Early Modern Europe