Authors’ discussions of their main arguments (thesis) are often woven in with their discussions of what past scholars have done in their field (historiography).  They normally provide this information within the first few pages of their article.  Consider this: In the process of making a point about something related to the past, most historians will explain how their particular focus or thesis contributes to or challenges existing interpretations in the field.They normally will say something like:”Scholars have focused on A, B, and C, but they misunderstood D.”Or “We know a great deal about X and Y, but Z remains an understudied area.”The first couple paragraphs of your literature review should demonstrate that you understand what the author’s main argument is and how the author sees his or her work fitting within a larger body of scholarship.

After unpacking the article’s thesis and historiographical position, you should spend one to three paragraphs discussing how the author elaborates on the thesis with specific examples.  What stories or events does the author describe in support of the main argument?  How do these examples relate to the main argument?

Finally, in one or two paragraphs at the end of the literature review, you should discuss the historical evidence (i.e., primary sources) the author used for this article.  Here, you should first consider broadly the types of primary sources used (e.g., newspaper, memoir, government document, etc.) and then cite specific examples (e.g., an article in the New York Times from 1856, a letter from Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, a study published by the Norfolk Department of Public Health in the 1860s, etc.).  To find this information, you may need to review the author’s footnotes/endnotes.

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