Read the instructions carefully, highlighting the major questions being asked and goals of the assignment. 

This resource provides a list of questions to consider about your assignment. 

If you have questions, ask your instructor or TA during their office hours, or make an appointment with a writing consultants from the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center.

If you’ve never done archival research before or would like a refresher, review the UT Libraries Primary Source Guide. 

Examine examples of archival research projects, paying attention to the visual, textual, and structural organization of the different samples. 

• Video Game Music Evolution by Wyatt Skillen. 
• The Role of Discrimination in the American AIDS Epidemic by Amber Hinshaw.
• The Influenza Epidemic of 1918: The Real World War by Jaclynn Basl.
• If you’re taking ENG 102, you can also find sample archival papers throughout Rhetoric of Inquiry, pp. 392-420.

Gather together any readings already assigned in your class, your notes from class lectures and discussions, and any other resources you’ve already identified for this project. 

(This step should take 10% of your project time.)  Continue with the step in the next box or return to the Assignment Planners tool to start again. 

If you have the option to choose the focus of your archival research, select an inquiry that matters to you!

• Ask yourself: What do you want to know more about? What past event or practice corresponds to issues you’re already interested in? Try doing some brainstorming through the center-of-gravity technique, creating a concept map, or mind-mapping.
• As you brainstorm, start a list of keywords you can use to search for relevant primary sources. 

Draft a guiding statement such as “My archival project will explore…” Be sure to double-check your instructor’s guidelines about the type of research inquiry you’re being asked to do, then follow these suggestions as you turn your guiding statement into a working research question (you may have to select tab 2 “Develop your Research Question”).  

To create an effective archival research project, you’ll need to decide which time period(s) you’ll be researching. Generally, there are two choices for how to frame your project using time (definitions adapted from Rhetoric of Inquiry, 5th ed., p. 209):

• Diachronically: according to many points over a length of time (e.g. women’s hair removal methods in the early 1900’s, 1920’s, and 1950’s).
• Synchronically: according to events, environmental features, or artifacts or items that exist at one period of time (e.g. women’s hair removal methods in 1900). 

As you work, be sure to refer back to your assignment sheet to help guide you. Get guidance from your instructor when needed. 

(This step should take 10% of your project time.).  Continue with the step in the next box, or return to the Assignment Planners tool to start again.

An archival research project draws on information you find through primary research. As you begin, make sure you know what type of primary sources your instructor wants you to draw from (e.g., photographs, advertisements, diaries). Here are some credible archival sites to help get you started: 

• UT Primary Source Research Guide
• UT Digital Collections Research Guide
• UT McClung Museum Digital Objects
• Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
• Digital Library of Tennessee (TNDPLA)
• National Archives
• DocsTeach
• Smithsonian Institution
• Knox County Archives
• Indigenous Digital Archive

As you research, be sure to save your sources and write notes. PowerNotes is a great tool for annotating and saving sources. It is available for free to UTK students!

As you’re researching and writing, it’s important to take the time to properly analyze your sources. Depending on your instructor’s guidelines, most primary research benefits from the use of more than one archival document. This will better position you to structure your research diachronically or synchronically, as you’ve decided in Step 2. 

• When conducting your analysis, it’s helpful to start by closely examining your primary source. What can you tell, just from observing your source? Write down everything you notice. 
• Once you’ve written your observations, if your instructor allows it, you can conduct some secondary source research to provide historical context for your primary source. Ask yourself, what was going on at the time your source was created?  

Also, refer back frequently to the research question you drafted in Step 2 to make sure you’re on track with your intended focus (it’s normal to revise your research question as you learn more about your past event or practice, you just want to be clear about what question you’re trying to answer with your research). 

(This step should take 25% of your project time.)  Continue with the step in the next box, or return to the Assignment Planners tool to start again.

Write a first draft of your project following your instructor’s guidelines. (Reminder: if you’re taking ENG 102, Rhetoric of Inquiry has helpful sample papers on pages 392-420.) Regardless of your instructor’s prescribed format, your project will include the following: 

• An introduction detailing necessary background information for your audience.
  • This may include your findings from secondary source research, depending on your instructor’s guidelines.
• Detailed analysis of each of your artifacts.
• A full, detailed answer to your research question, including:
  • A claim about your past event or practice that you support with evidence from your primary sources (and any secondary sources you may have used). 
  • How your claim examines your past event or practice diachronically (over several points in time) or synchronically (during one specific time period), depending on which you’ve chosen.
• Properly-formatted sources according to the prescribed style: MLA, APA, Chicago, including in-text citations.  

(This step should take 30% of your project time.)  Continue with the step in the next box, or return to the Assignment Planners tool to start again.

First, review your assignment guidelines and/or rubric.

Get feedback from your instructor or TA during their office hours, from the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center, or from a peer. 

Review these tips for Incorporating Peer and Instructor Feedback. 

(This step should take 10% of your project time.)  Continue with the step in the next box, or return to the Assignment Planners tool to start again.

Try the “read out loud” approach to review your work–it can help you find things you might otherwise miss. 

Write down at least 2-3 major things you need to revise. Rather than focus on small design or sentence-level details, think more about elements like your analysis of historical artifacts, your overall structure/design, and the accuracy and clarity of your citations.

Revise as needed, based on your own review and the feedback you received.

If you need to do further research to help contextualize your findings, you can use UT Library’s resources for finding sources –and remember, you can always ask a Librarian for help. 

(This step should take 10% of your project time.) 

Continue with the step in the next box, or return to the Assignment Planners tool to start again.

Review the assignment guidelines and/or rubric one last time. 

Proofread  your work carefully and slowly. Review your archival project by assessing your text and any visuals for accuracy, clarity, and consistency. Check for spelling and grammatical errors, and, if you are displaying your work digitally, verify that all links work correctly. 

(This step should take 5% of your project time.).  Return to the Assignment Planners page.