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Do not mistake pointing out a flaw for a personal attack
One of the things you learn early on when conducting any form of humanities based research is that evidence requires narrative, and that effective publication of evidence takes skill and deft handling to produce. Personally I much prefer humanities scholarship to pure scientific output because it allows me to situate evidence within a cultural context rather than stating a bald fact, something which those who dislike the humanities take much issue with. I have a BSc and an MSc, so I am aware of the difference in approaches, though as with anything this does come down to personal preference and taste. What I do find hard, though, is when people assume I am acting in bad faith simply for stating a fact in the round, like that piece of information is an inherent personal attack on their core identity. Given my field of research it is easy for me to state something that trans folk, exclusionary feminists, men’s rights advocates, and others might object to, yet the reality is I prefer to write narratives that work with all the evidence rather than simply cherry picking one fact and blowing it out of context.
This is a hard lesson to learn for any student, especially who you start out writing. The jump from high school to university is one from stating facts to critically engaging with evidence in context. Historians are trained from day one year one of…
