History fans, I need some help and advice

[Goldeh]

I need to start working on my history dissertation proposal and I've had various seminar support on how to choose a topic but nothing about actually selecting one. Everyone I've spoken to have said to choose what I love but I love so many things. I've also been told that it must be an original piece of research and all my ideas feel like I'm re-treading old ground.

Some papers I've written over the course of my studies include topics like:

• social history of industrial revolution era workplace accidents and their impact
• using literature as a historical source
• the history of sleep
• race riots
• commemorations, who we commemorate, who we don't, and why
• the history of aesthetic landscapes
• public history
• environmental history

My areas of interest are the industrial revolution, the Victorians, museums and their role/museum collections, the history of crafts and their stories (especially gendered crafts like knitting, proggy mats, etc and functions the serve in things like identity, remembrance, generational skill sharing, etc), the cultural significance and contextualisation of myths and fairytales, the history of disease.

I cannot think of new research angles on any of these. I know I will eventually and that the reason I'm currently blocked is because I'm overthinking it.

In the meantime, inspire me with your unanswered historical questions, wonderings, musings, and crack theories (my personal crack theory is that vikings wore wooden helmets).

Unfortunately, that's the sort of thing ChatGPT and other large language models will be utterly crap at.

They work by taking in as much information as possible, and working out what the most likely answer is based on that. Which means they're great for answering common questions, but absolutely rubbish and actually trying to think of something unique, because they have absolutely no imagination

Although the thought did cross my mind, "How did she get the only boiler in the district and was one penny a week reasonable rent for use of boiler?"

You never do know with these historical figures.

Really depends what you’re trying to get out of it, just ask for a dissertation title, sure that won’t work well, but have a conversation about the eras of history you like, your interests and how that might overlap, what collections are publicly available, how much has been written on it etc. It won’t do the job for you (well it probably could but I wouldn’t trust it!), but it can certainly support you and lead you somewhere.

Most universities have rules about this.

I think you’re misunderstanding what I am suggesting it is used for. What I am suggesting is no different to googling or asking on MN, it’s looking for ideas, not for actual content.

Yes, it is different.

No one trained MN by getting it to skim vast amounts of published research.

Most universities have rules about using AI. The OP needs to check those very carefully, if she thinks AI is worth using. IMO it would be better not to use it.

If I were marking an undergrad history dissertation (and I have marked quite a lot), I would be looking to see how good the student was at finding a research question, working out what had been published on the subject, hunting down collections of sources, etc. If the answer turned out to be 'oh, I asked ChatGPT' I would not be impressed. And the student would not be able to tell me why she had come up with that combination of sources, because she didn't do the work. She wouldn't be able to tell me about the sources she excluded from her study, or why, because she didn't do the work.

You're really overstating and/or misunderstanding what I am suggesting. I am extremely doubtful what I have suggested is in anyway inappropriate or against university rules. It’s a conversation with a language model pulling out ideas, no different to asking around. Would you deem creating a study plan or a schedule for the day cheating and against university rules? I am not in anyway suggesting it writes content. No different to googling your topic to see what’s out there already, like you would never ever use anything in Wikipedia in your dissertation, but you might have a quick read over it to get a quick snapshot of your topic.

AI is a tool like any other, it’s how it is used.

It's absolutely no skin of my nose, but I don't think I am misunderstanding - it's just I know that writing a good dissertation is about more than 'content'. It's about developing research skills and honing a research question. Subbing those out to AI is not a good idea, in my view.

You’re talking to a qualified archivist, I get you I do, supporting research was my calling for many years, but tools like ChatGPT can be used to complement research techniques just has Google does. You can abuse it and over use it for sure, but there is a place for it, especially in those really early speculative stages when you’re not actually yet selecting and deselecting sources, when you’re just trying to scope a project and see what’s out there, against your own interests especially.

If you find it helpful as an archivist, you go for it.

But as someone whose qualifications and experience are in marking undergrad dissertations, I'm hoping the OP won't.

Neither you or are I are more qualified than the other, but I suspect you are quickly going to fall behind if you don’t keep up.

Are you qualified, and experienced, with supervising and marking dissertations?

I'm halfway through knitting DH an Aran sweater with beautiful Aran yarn from Ireland!

Thats very interesting @ICouldHaveCheckedFirstvery resonant of the Self Help movement. There is still a lace making tradition in Honiton, near where I live. The lace was used in Kate's wedding dress.

In Spain and Portugal you see these lovely embroidered table linens, which are still hand made by local women.

It was Joseph Jacquard https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/jacquard-loom

No, I said I'm aware of Jacquard. But there's a lot more to knitting and weaving than Jacquard, important though he was.

Orrrrr just talk to the fucking person at the university who is paid to do this

How schooling and teaching has changed. Life in a Victorian classroom. Did children learn effectively with canings/corporal punishment going on. How top-flight unis became known as such, and are they now just trading on reputation or are they actually worth it.

Yes but from my experience tutors do all they can to avoid taking on dissertation supervision, preferring to spend their time on research. They are incentivised for the latter, not the former.

It is bonkers to me that you would ask ChatGPT for advice on this rather than talk to a person.

I'd research women who made significant advances in science and technology but were swept under the carpet and their inventions and discoveries attributed to man instead. The best example being Rosalind Franklin and her X ray crystallography in the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Maybe not if they worked?

Well, this reminds me of a computing conference I went to at the (then) headquarters of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London. They had a small museum of instruments and implements I had to walk through to get to the ladies. Quite terrifying.

I reckon the OP could get a good and original dissertation working with them...

www.rcog.org.uk/guidance/library-services/heritage-collections-archives-and-museum/museum/

I recently wrote a history about a local coal mine. It was unusual because a lady was in overall charge of the day to day running. This is in the Victorian and Edwardian period, although her husband owned the pit, he didn't want to be involved with daily running. I learnt lots of interesting stuff doing my research. She was so kind and popular the miners renamed the pit "The Fair Lady" and it is still known as that locally 60 years after it closed. I wondered if there were any other ladies in a senior position on the coal mines of that time? If you DM me I'll send you what I wrote.

They're not alternatives - she can do both.