Quotations: Its Forms and Usages

Arthur Marwick in his The New Nature of History points out that “the relationship between ‘history’, ‘the past’ and ‘sources’ make it necessary for all historical knowledge to contain direct quotations from the source material.” Quotations are frequently used by research scholars and students in the body of their study as well as in footnotes. Quotations of a lengthy nature are often found in the appendices.

Quotations are words or sentences containing ideas or opinions of prominent scholars borrowed to highlight or substantiate the thesis or thoughts of a researcher or writer. Louis Gottschalk in Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method says that quotations can be used for the “picturesqueness of language, exactness of word or phrase, original testimony, new information, moot points and the like.”

In General, a quotation – whether a word, phrase, sentence, or more – should correspond exactly to its source in spelling, capitalization and interior punctuation. Short quotations are to be placed within double inverted commas. A quotation within such a quotation is to be put within single inverted commas. In the case of a third quotation, which is placed within the second quotation, is to be within the double inverted commas. In case quotations are quite lengthy it can be placed in a separate paragraph.

When to Use Quotations

a)     Quotations can be used when the quotation itself became the subject of discussion.

b)     To validate a point, statement, or argument.

c)    Quotation can be used when the original words of an author are expressed so consciously and convincingly that the student cannot improve on these words.

d)    Direct quotations can be used for documentation of a major argument where the footnote would not suffice.

e)    Quotations are used when students are required to comment upon, refute or analyse ideas expressed by another writer.

f)   Direct quotations may be used when paraphrasing might cause misunderstanding or is liable to be misinterpreted.

g)    Direct quotations can be used when citing scientific and mathematical data or formulas.

h)  Quotations are used when doubt or disagreement arises as to the real meaning or a statement or assertion.

i)    Direct quotations can be used in biographical studies to highlight the style or elegance of an author or statesman’s language or speech.

How to Quote

1)   Quotations should be accurate in words, spelling, punctuation, etc. In case of errors, they are to be reproduced as in the original and the user can point out the errors by using the word ‘sic’ immediately after the error. The name of the author of the quotation is also to be given.

2) If the tense of the quotation does not fit the introduction of the quotation, interpolations/insertions may be used in square brackets.

3)  Omissions made in the original quotation forms when certain portions are considered irrelevant are indicated by three full stops (…) referred to as ‘Ellipsis’. When the quotation consists of more than one sentence and the beginning words of the second sentence are omitted, four full stops or ‘Ellipsis’ are used (….).

4)   Quotations are not to be used out of the context giving scope for misrepresentation of the original statement.

5)    The source of the quotation should be easily identifiable.

6)  Extensive quotations from the published works require the permission of the copyright holder.

Use of Quotations: Precautions and Limitations

             i) In historical narrative or exposition, it is the historian’s re-interpretation of what the documents teach that ought to be the prime objective. The reader’s interest will lag if lengthy quotations are regularly introduced as Louis Gottschalk opines.

          ii) Except where the writer has a special reason for quoting his source, his conclusions from his sources and not the sources themselves are what the lay reader generally wants to know.

           iii) While Quotations are common and often effective in research papers, use them selectively, the MLA Handbook advises. Over quotations can bore your readers and might lead them to conclude that you are neither an original thinker nor a skillful writer.

    iv) Barzun and Graff in the Modern Researcher say with all the force at their disposal that “quotations are illustrations, not proofs”. They further state that quotations “must as far as possible be merged into the text”.

         v)  Arthur Marwick in The New Nature of History opinions that “on the whole quotations should be kept to an absolute minimum in both popularisations and undergraduate essays”. The opinion that a case is somehow clinched by citing the direct speech of one or two authorities is as erroneous as it seems to be widespread. Marwick points out that one of the most common errors beginning Ph.D. students fall into is the overuse of direct quotations. This is because it is simpler to copy out and reproduce large chunks of material than to think very carefully about which particular phrases one needs to quote and why. However, quotations need not be so brief and out of context as to be misleading.

        vi) Quotations should not stand out prominently or conspicuously but should be a spontaneous part of the main study or discussion. For this purpose, the quotation should either be preceded by or followed by an intelligent comment or remark.

To conclude, the writer is permitted to shine, when required, in borrowed feathers but it should not be overdone. Excessive quotations do more harm than good to the research study and question the very intelligence and originality of the author.    

Ashis Nandy and ‘Towards A Third World Utopia’

Ashis Nandy is an Indian political psychologist, social theorist, and critic. A well-trained clinical psychologist, Nandy has provided theoretical critiques of European colonialism, development, modernity, science, technology, nuclearism, cosmopolitanism and utopia. Nandy has been associated with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. 

Nandy’s work has alternated between human destructiveness and human potentialities. And he has combined these interests with efforts to move out of conventional scholarship, to build into his work categories and sensitivities used in marginalised knowledge systems surviving in the backwaters of the world. His earlier books include Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists (Oxford University Press, 1995), The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and the Destiny of Games (Oxford University Press, 2000), An Ambiguous Journey to the City: The Village and Other Odd Ruins of the Self in Indian Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2000), Romance of the State and the Fate of Dissent in the Tropics (Oxford University Press, 2008), Time Warps (Rutgers University Press, 2002), and Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias (Oxford University Press, 1988).

In his popular essay Oppression and Human Liberation: Towards A Third World Utopia, Ashish Nandi posted his views on the emerging third world. To him, the Third World is bound together by the experience of oppression rather than by common cultural traditions. This vision recognized the continuity between the oppressed and the oppressor and sees the institutional and psychological liberation from outer oppression as a matter of self-realization.

Third World. The concept of the Third World is not a cultural category; it is a political and economic category born of oppression, indignity and self-contempt. A Third World utopia must recognize this basic reality. To have a meaningful ‘life’ in the minds of men, such a utopia must start with the historical issue of oppression that has given the Third World both its name and its uniqueness. This paper is a civilizational perspective on oppression, with a less articulate secular theory of salvation as its appendage.

His approach is based on three assumptions. First, as far as the core values are concerned, good and right ethics are not the monopoly of any civilization. All civilizations share certain basic values and such cultural traditions as deriving from man’s biological self and evolutionary experience.

Second, that human civilization is continuously trying to alter or expand its awareness of exploitation and oppression. Oppressions that were once outside the span of awareness are no longer so, and it is quite likely that the present awareness of suffering, too, would be found wanting and would change in the future.

Third, those imperfect societies produce imperfect remedies for their imperfections. Theories of salvation are not uncontaminated by the spatial and temporal location of the theorists. Since the solutions are products of the same social experiences that produce the problems, they cannot but be informed by the same consciousness or, if you allow psychologism, unconsciousness. 

Gender History

Gender history is a type of historical analysis that has developed out of women’s history. In the 1960s and 1970s, gender was often used as a synonym for women’s history. But from the 1980s the term developed as a separate interest among historians and critics in other disciplines. Joan Wallach Scott defined gender as “a social category imposed on a sexed body,” and stated that “gender is a primary way of signifying relations of power.” Gender can be defined as the study of the cultural (including the historical, social, class, intellectual, economic, political, psychological, literary, etc.) organisation, functioning, representation and meaning of sex/body difference. Gender distinction has been explored as a common and omnipresent characteristic of society.

Gender as a category of analysis, is a mechanism by which change over time can be interpreted and represented. Initially, it grew as a part of women’s history in the 1960s. It began in some ways as a branch of social history, and many of the essays include extensive discussions of issues that matter to social historians: the family, work and leisure experiences, marriage patterns, and class differences. It criticized patriarchy, and male dominance and explained why women were hidden from history. Then, Juliet Mitchell and Teresa Brennan, the feminine through their psychoanalysis explained the subjectivity of women through language. From the 1970s and into the 1980s, especially through the early efforts of Sally Alexander and Catherine Hall, women, class and sexual difference came under the scope of a variety of Marxist historians. In this phase of women's history, sex and class often figured as related forms of oppression: the female sex was viewed as a subordinate class, subjugated by a dominant class of men.

By the mid-1980s a gradual breakdown of the category "woman" had begun to propel the turn to gender. The critical questioning of women as organized historical subjects, objects, and political identities was one factor that necessitated the arrival of gender as a keyword of historical analysis. By the early 1990s gender had become a substantial topic among historians and those interested in an interdisciplinary approach to it. Two edited texts from that time, Julia Epstein’s and Kristina Straub’s collection Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity (1991) and Sue Tolleson Rinehart’s Gender Consciousness and Politics (1992), indicate the final arrival of gender consciousness among historians as well as academics.

Gender also made inroads into philosophy in the early 1990s and the most important works are Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter’s edited Feminist Epistemologies (1993), Ann Garry’s and Marilyn Pearsall’s Women, Knowledge and Reality (1996), and Jean Curthoys’s Feminist Amnesia (1997). Most notably French feminist philosophers and critical theorists Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous, along with Judith Butler, Diane Elam, Teresa Brennan, Mary Poovey and Donna Haraway, have explored the process of cultural absorption into a dominant gendered discourse, raising questions about how gender historically defines sex.

Gender is now firmly fixed as a part of the historical construction. For example, explorations that link sexuality, gender, and nationalism are revealed in texts like George L. Mosse’s Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe (1985) and the multiple-authored Nationalisms and Sexualities (1992). On gender, race, imperialism and colonialism see Anne McClintock et al., Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nations, and Postcolonial Perspectives (1997) and Ida Bloom, Karen Hagemann and Catherine Hall, Gendered Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century (2000).

Like all the concepts that historians use, gender is a modelling device for organising and then representing the past. Gender history is a way of looking at the past that expands our vision.  

Leopold von Ranke

Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), the nineteenth-century German historian, is generally considered as the Father or Columbus of modern history and the Father of modern scientific history. He is also known as the founding father of Empirical historiography and he stood for objectivity. It was Ranke who must be credited with the beginning of modern historiography.

Important Works of Ranke

·         History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations

·         History of the world

·         History of the Popes

·         History of the Reformation in Germany

·         French History

·         English History

·         Prussian History

·         Published a journal entitled Historische Zeitschrift

Berlin Revolution

Ranke was a Professor of history at Berlin University. He brought fundamental changes in the writing of modern history. Thus his revolutionary contributions to the historical writing are described as Berlin Revolution.

Contributions of Ranke

Objectivity – It was Ranke who laid the foundation of a genuinely ‘objective’ historiography. “Strict presentation of the fact is the supreme law of history and the duty of the historian is to show what actually happened”. He clearly distinguished history from literature and philosophy. By doing so, he attempted to rid it of an overdose of imagination and metaphysical speculation. For him, the historians’ job was to investigate the past on its own terms and to show to the readers ‘how it essentially was’. The objectivist tradition believed in both the reality of the past as well as in the possibility of its mirror representation.

Historicism – Ranke believed that the past should be understood in its own terms and not those of the present. In Ranke’s opinion, the historian should avoid the present-centric concerns while studying the past. This idea of Ranke and the Empirical school introduced the notion of historicity. It meant that the past has its own nature which was different from the present. It is the duty of the historian to uncover the spirit of a particular age.

Empiricism – Ranke was an Empiricist who believed that knowledge is derived only through sense experience. And the knowledge of the past can come from the sources which are the objective embodiments of the experiences of the people of that particular period. Thus the historian should rely only on the material available in the sources.

Hierarchy of the sources – Ranke wanted the historians to subject the sources to strict examination and look for their internal consistency so as to determine whether they were genuine or later additions. He wanted the historians to critically examine and verify all the sources before reposing their trust in them. But, once it was proved that the records were genuine and belonged to the age which the historian was studying, the historian may put complete faith in them. He called these records primary sources and maintained that these sources would provide the foundations for a true representation of the contemporary period. Thus the historians should trust the archival records more than the printed ones which might be biased. Then there are the other sources produced by people later on. These are known as secondary sources, which indirectly relate to the events.

Ranke also emphasized the importance of providing references. This way all the assertions and statements could be supported by giving full details of the sources from which they were derived.

Ranke differentiated between facts and interpretations. He emphasised the primacy of facts that were supported by the evidences based on the sources. The historians’ job is to first establish facts and then interpret them.

Through his interventions in the field of writing history, Ranke gave a professional status to the subject – of history. However, following the medieval historiographers, he believed that “In all history, God dwells, lives is to be seen”.

Auguste Comte and Positivism

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the French positivist philosopher. His full name was Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte. The aim of positivist philosophy was to liberate history from the hold of religion and metaphysics, and to make history to stand on its own base of historical laws. Comte wanted to introduce the scientific observations into the study of history

Important Books of Comte

§  A Plan for the Scientific Works Necessary to Recognize the Society,

§  Course of Positive Philosophy

§  System of Positive polity

His important contributions are:

                                                                                           

(i)     the adoption of positive or scientific method to history

(ii)   the law of the three stages of intellectual development – theological, metaphysical and scientific

(iii) the classification of sciences – Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology

(iv)  Philosophy of each of the sciences prior to sociology

(v)    The synthesis of the system of positive philosophy

August Comte believed that the inductive method used in the natural sciences needed to be applied to the history as well as the humanities in general. He also claimed scientific status for the humanities. He thought that all societies operated through certain general laws which needed to be discovered. According to him, all societies historically passed through three stages of development. The three stages are:

(1)   The ‘theological’ or fictitious stage, during which the human mind was in its infancy and the natural phenomena were explained as the results of divine or supernatural powers. This stage has 3 sub stages – animism, polytheism and monotheism

(2)   The ‘metaphysical’ or abstract stage is transitional in the course of which the human mind passes through its adolescence. In this stage, the processes of nature were explained as arising from occult powers.

(3)   The ‘Positive’ stage which witnessed the maturity of human mind and the perfection of human knowledge. Now there was no longer a search for the causes of the natural phenomena but a quest for the discovery of their laws. Observation, reasoning and experimentation were the means to achieve this knowledge. This was the scientific age which is the final stage in the development of human societies as well as human minds.

Comte considered that the Positive stage was dominated by science and industry. In this age the scientists have replaced the theologians and the priests, and the industrialists, including traders, managers and financiers, have replaced the warriors. Comte believed in the absolute primacy of science. In the Positive stage, there is a search for the laws of various phenomena.

Comte arranged the sciences in order of their importance as Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Sociology. Each of these sciences depends upon the previous one. Sociology not only completes the series and acts as a guide in the reconstruction of the society. He thus laid the basis for social history.

            In the 19^th century a group of historians called the Positivists emerged. They believed in the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte. By philosophy of history, the positivist meant (a) Ascertaining facts (b) Framing laws. The historian was to ascertain facts through sensuous perception and then framing laws through generalization. Under this influence, a new kind of historiography arose called positivist historiography. ‘The historical process’ as R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) says ‘for the positivists, was in kind identical with natural process, and that was why the methods of natural sciences were applicable to the interpretation of history’. Social and historical phenomena were also subject to certain ascertainable laws and open to treatment as in the case of natural sciences.

Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldun (AD 1332-1406), is the most celebrated historian of the medieval period, belonging to the Arab historiography. He is well-known for his work Universal History.

Kitab-al-Ibar (Universal History)

The book consists of three great books.

1.      The first book treats civilization, its essential characteristics, and its influence on human beings.

2.      The second book tells the story of the Arabs with important and elaborate references to the history of all the nations from Central Asia to Italy.

3.      The third book covers the history of author's own Maghrib (northwest Africa)

Prefixed to these three books is the famous introduction called Prolegomena or Muqaddima, which deals with the science of history and the development of society. Al-Taarif, a short autobiography of the author is suffixed to this book.

In his Prolegomena, Khaldun analysed the science of history which he equates with the science of culture. Here he has explained the nature of historical facts, their relationship, trends and problems and variations, etc. For him, history is not merely the study of events but also their relations among themselves, their meaning and value. For this, a historian needs certain tools and the most important is the knowledge of the nature and causes of actual events, which comes under the science of culture. In this regard, first, he analysed the influence of the environment on social life. Secondly, he traced the origin and development of society through the ages and examined the impact of the past on the present. Thirdly, he gave emphasis psychological desires to determine social habits.

Khaldun classified all sciences into three groups:

1.      Theoretical – deals with the knowledge of the truth (Humanities)

2.      Practical – deals with the ability for practical action (Science)

3.      Productive – for the perfection of things (Technology)

The Science of Culture according to Khaldun is the mixture of all these three branches of knowledge.

In the first book of his Universal History, Khaldun analysed the influence of civilisation on man. In this part, he framed four necessary causes for the genesis of culture. They are:

1.  Material Cause: It consists of all the physical factors such as food, shelter, soil, climate, vegetation and all other material needs.

2.  Formal Cause: It is the instrument through which culture actually takes shape. Khaldun regarded State as the formal cause, which is responsible for shaping culture.

3.    Efficient Cause: It is an abstract idea. He regards solidarity, harmony, moderation and justice as efficient causes necessary for the growth of a culture.

4.   Final Cause: It is the idea of common goodness. A man should know the direction in which he is going, and his goal or destiny is happiness.

In other words, Khaldun holds economic factors as Material Cause, political factors as Formal Cause, social factors as Effective Cause and ethical or philosophical factors as Final Cause.

The importance of Ibn Khaldun is that he developed the sociological view of history. He also devised the critical evaluation of the sources to produce truthful accounts of the past.

St. Augustine and Christian Historiography

St. Augustine (AD 354-430), the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa was the greatest Church historiographer of the medieval period. He is well known for his work City of God and for his providential philosophy of history.

The Works of St. Augustine

Confessions

The Confessions is a spiritual autobiography. It covers the first 35 years of Augustine's life, with particular emphasis on Augustine's spiritual development and how he accepted Christianity. The text is directly addressed to God.

City of God (Click for a summary of the book)

This book is divided into 22 books, composed between 413 and 426 AD. The book was written mainly to defend Christianity. In AD 410,   King Alaric of the Vandals captured the city of Rome. The Romans considered their city eternal, so the collapse of the Roman Empire shocked them. Then the Pagan scholars blamed Christianity as the cause of the decline of the empire. St. Augustine wrote his work City of God to refute the arguments of the Pagans.

The first ten books of The City of God, which make up the first part of the work, refute the pagans’ charges that Christians brought about the fall of Rome. Augustine depicted the calamities suffered by the Romans before the coming of Christianity and argued that the Roamans became weak because of these gods. He argued that it was because of the sin of the people that the Roman Empire declined.

In the second part of the book, Augustine describes the doctrine of the two cities – one earthly and one heavenly. The first city is the City of God, the divine city founded by Angels, and its reflection is the holy church.  The second is the City of Man, the earthly city founded by Satan and its reflection is the state. Whatever God has done is so perfect and whatever man has done is imperfect. The earthly city is based on physical force, but the city of god is based on divine love. Man has devised a State with several forms of government but none of these is suited to man. Whereas God has devised church, his kingdom that enables man to attain perfect knowledge. Augustine gives the freedom to choose any one of these cities. According to him these cities are inextricably intermingled with each other and will not be separated until ‘the last judgment’. The book became the basis of catholic theology and formulated the dominant political theory of the Middle Ages. It was the first effort to propound the relationship between Church and State.   

The Providential Philosophy

According to the providential view, history was guided by the divine will. The divine will direct the destinies of mankind according to the cosmic order. Events, actions, and happenings were explained in terms of an intervening divine providence. The man had no control over his environment. It was championed by St. Augustine in his famous book ‘The City of God’. According to him, history is a constant conflict between the City of God and the City of Man. He contrasted the secular state (evil and transitory) with the kingdom of God (serene and eternal). The task of historical study is ‘to trace the steps by which one is slowly replaced by or transformed into the other’. These views constituted the Christian historical approach, held sway over the Middle Ages, and shaped the course of Christian historical thought.

Postmodern Challenge on History

Postmodernism offers a fundamental critique of the conventional mode of history-writing. Sometimes the critique becomes so radical that it almost becomes anti-history. The main ingredient of history-writing, such as facts, sources, documents, archival records, etc., all come under severe scrutiny under the microscope of postmodernist vision.

Postmodernism rejects the ‘objectivist’ tradition of history writing starting with Ranke who strove to recover the past ‘as it actually was’. It has attacked history both in its grander versions as well as in its relatively modest versions. It challenges the proclaimed objectivity and neutrality of historians and claims that the process of interpretation transforms the past in radically different ways.

Postmodernism questions the very basis of conventional historiography by locating its origins in modern Europe’s encounter with the other. It began with the European Renaissance which prompted the Europeans to ‘discover’ other lands and people. In this quest, the ‘history’ served as a tool for posing the modern western self in opposition to the other whose history was supposed to be just beginning as a result of its encounter with Europe. Thus the practice of history was employed not just to study the past but to fashion it in terms of the criteria set by modern Europe. History, therefore, evolved into a western quest for power over the colonized territories and its desire to appropriate their pasts.

Postmodernism rejects the grand narrative of history which visualises that the human society is moving in a certain direction, toward an ultimate goal. According to postmodernism, there is no historical truth but what the historians make it out to be, no facts except what the historians interpret, and no representable past except what the historians construct. In the postmodernist view, history can be accepted as genuine knowledge only if it sheds its claims to truth and hence to power and accepts its fragmentary character. The only history possible is micro history.

The postmodern theorists question the very basis on which the discipline of history has been based. They do not believe in the disciplinary boundaries in academics, such as those between history and literature, or between economics and anthropology, and so on. They also question the existence of facts and events apart from what the historians make them out to be. In their view, linguistic representation becomes the essence of the past and the core of history.

End of the autonomous subject, of history and of absolute truth: This is a well-known “slogan” associated with postmodernism. The meaning is this: By “end of history,” postmoderns mean three things: They question the assumption that human beings are progressing to an even better state of being or society. A later stage of history can be worse than the previous one. Secondly, they look at historiography (the writing of history) critically. What we have is not raw history, but historiography done by particular nations or persons or cultures. We do not have anyone objective of knowing or writing history. Thus, the history of the British Period in India would look different when written by an English historian— especially one who believed in the superiority of British culture or in the right of conquest—or by an Indian who saw colonization as immoral. Thirdly, postmoderns do not believe that history has a direction or unity. They think rather that the events that make up history are of too many different kinds to fit into anyone's coherent whole.

Postmodernists treated all documents and facts are nothing but texts and ideologically constructed. There are even more extreme views within postmodernism with regard to historiography. Keith Jenkins, therefore, declares that ‘we are now at a postmodern moment when we can forget history completely.’ This extreme position questions the very existence of any kind of professional history writing.

Critique of Postmodernism

The postmodernist critique of modernity ranges from total rejection to partial acceptance.

• The critiques have pointed out that in some extreme forms of postmodern relativism, the implication may be that ‘anything goes’.
• Moreover, the postmodern analysis of society and culture is lop-sided because it emphasises the tendencies towards fragmentation while completely ignoring the equally important movements towards synthesisation and the broader organisation.
• It also tends to ignore the roles of state and capital as much more potent tools of domination and repression.
• Some critics also charge postmodernism with being historicist as it accepts the inevitability of the present and its supposedly postmodernist character. If the world is now postmodern, it is our fate to be living in it. But such postmodernity that the western world has created now is no more positive than the earlier social formation it is supposed to have superseded.
• Moreover, it is not very sure whether modernity has actually come to an end. In fact, large parts of the world in the erstwhile colonial and semi-colonial societies and East European countries are now busy modernizing themselves. The concept of postmodernity, therefore, remains mostly at an academic and intellectual level.
• Critics also argue that many postmodernists, deriving from poststructuralism, deny the possibility of knowing facts and reality. As a result, no event can be given any weightage over another. All happenings in the past are of the same value. 

Hypothesis

A hypothesis is generally considered a research indicator. It is a tentative explanation of the research problem or a guess about the research outcome. The hypothesis is usually considered the principal instrument in research. It helps social scientists to suggest a theory that may explain and predict the events. The hypothesis is like a formal research question intends to resolve. The hypotheses in historical research are useful in explaining events, conditions, or phenomena of the period in question. Hypotheses are particularly necessary for studies where cause and effect relationships are to be discovered. The hypotheses for historical research may not be formal hypotheses to be tested. They are written as explicit statements that tentatively explain the occurrence of events and conditions. According to Borg, without hypotheses, historical research often becomes little more than an aimless gathering of facts.

Functions or Importance of Hypotheses

• Provides a clear focus to research
• Helps in selecting and collecting relevant facts
• Helps to explain the research problem
• Offers a temporary answer to the research question
• Provides a structure and operational directions to research
• Helps to suggest a theory that may explain and predict events
• Provides the framework for drawing conclusions

 The hypothesis can be of two types:

1. Explanatory hypothesis – this is especially used in finding outlaws or formulas acting in history
2. Descriptive hypothesis – this is used for making a complex mass of facts, that are isolated from one another

 Developing Working Hypotheses

After an extensive literature survey, the researcher should state in clear terms the working hypothesis or hypotheses. A working hypothesis can be framed through:

 a)     Review of similar studies in the area or of the studies on similar problems

 b)     Examination of available data and records

 c)      Discussions with colleagues and experts about the problem

 d)     Preliminary personal investigation of the research problem

Working hypotheses are more useful when stated in precise and clearly defined terms. Hypotheses act as a step toward research work. Thus, working hypotheses arise as a result of pre-thinking about the subject.

 Characteristics of hypothesis

 A hypothesis must possess the following characteristics:

• It should be clear and precise. If the hypothesis is not clear and precise, the inferences drawn on its basis cannot be taken as reliable.
• It should be limited in scope and must be specific. No vague terms should be used in the formulation of a hypothesis.
• It should be stated as far as possible in the most simple terms so that the same is easily understandable by all concerned.
• It should be consistent with the most known facts. It should not conflict with any law of nature which is known to be true.
• It should be empirically testable. It should be capable of being tested whether it is right or wrong.
• It should be conceptually clear. The concepts used in the hypothesis should be clearly defined
• It should describe one issue only. It can be framed either in descriptive or relational form.
• It should be related to available techniques and methods.
• It should not be contradictory.

 Testing/Validating Hypothesis

It is generally considered that at the end of the research, the researcher should test the hypothesis. A hypothesis, when empirically proved, helps us in testing an existing theory. This should be done with the empirical evidences analyzed and interpreted during the research. This testing of the hypothesis allows the researcher to verify existing knowledge, fact, or theory as to right or wrong. In other words, when a hypothesis is tested, it aimed to support or reject an existing theory or facts. It also explains the empirical conditions in which the theory is accepted or rejected. Each time a hypothesis is tested empirically, it tells us something about the phenomenon it is associated with. If the hypothesis is empirically supported, then our information about the phenomenon increases. Even if the hypothesis is refuted, the test tells us something about the phenomenon we did not know before. A hypothesis, after its testing, may highlight the positive and negative aspects of the existing social or legislative policy. In such a situation, the tested hypothesis helps us in formulating (or reformulating) a social policy. It may also suggest or hint at probable solutions to the existing social problem(s) and their implementation.