Claim: Though often considered an objective pursuit, learning about the historical past requires creativity.
Reason: Because we can never know the past directly, we must reconstruct it by imaginatively interpreting historical accounts, documents, and artifacts.
People have always attached great importance to learning history. To really penetrate the past and to gain a deep understanding of it, however, it is insufficient to simply observe the facts; we must engage in a creative interpretation, putting all pieces together, to tell a coherent story.
For one thing, history is not a plain collection of accumulated facts and details. Rather, it is a constructed narrative, a story, that puts events and tendencies in a chronological order, identifying causes and effects and often linking seemingly unrelated happenings. Like any other story, the historical narrative is thus intrinsically subjective, depending on the teller's experience, inclinations and worldview. From Sima Qian and Herodotus to Timothy Snider and Gertrude Himmelfarb, historians have always engaged in telling stories, sometimes proposing rivaling interpretations of the same factual events. In fact, modern historical research is full of disputes and competing schools of thought, proving that nothing is settled indeed.
It is not only narrative that makes history subjective, though. In some instances, especially when dealing with the distant past, many historical details, from archaeological artifacts to written documents, are scarce or missing altogether. In other cases, it seems that the meaning attached to those artifacts and documents has changed dramatically through the ages, which may obscure their true importance. In all those cases, imaginative interpretation is vital to make any progress in historical research to further advance our understanding of the past. Objective account is then simply not an option.
It is not to say that there is no historical truth, so that one can simply make up a story without providing any substantial evidence to support his view. It does mean, however, that a purely truthful history, a mere collection of facts, is not history at all. To engage in historical research and learning, we must look beyond - we must think and create and imagine, not simply recite the same facts over and over again. Great historians, from Sima Qian and Herodotus to Timothy Snider and Gertrude Himmelfarb, understood it perfectly well.
People love history, because history if interesting and illuminating and engaging. But learning history is an intricate endeavour, as it demands not only a rigorous memorization of facts, but because it behooves us to think imaginatively, which is never easy. But if successful, it allows us to learn something new, and to better understand our past, if not our present and future.
- Scientific theories which most people consider as fact almost invariably prove to be inaccurate Thus one should look upon any information described as factual with skepticism since it may well be proven false in the future 83
- The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Jupiter Caf a small local coffee shop in the downtown area of a small American city We must reduce overhead here at the caf Instead of opening at 6 a m on weekdays we will now open at 8 a m On weeke 80
- All too often companies hire outside consultants to suggest ways for the company to operate more efficiently If companies were to spend more time listening to their own employees such consultants would be unnecessary 66
- The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette a local newspaper The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is to advise the city government on how to make the best use of the city s limited budget However at som 73
- The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual s levels of stimulation The study showed that in stimulating situat 43
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 410, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...hich may obscure their true importance. In all those cases, imaginative interpreta...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, look, may, really, so, then, thus, well, in fact, for one thing
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.5258426966 77% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.4196629213 40% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 14.8657303371 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 11.3162921348 88% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 33.0505617978 91% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 58.6224719101 89% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 12.9106741573 77% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2180.0 2235.4752809 98% => OK
No of words: 400.0 442.535393258 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45 5.05705443957 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.472135955 4.55969084622 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.11458443297 2.79657885939 111% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 215.323595506 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.575 0.4932671777 117% => OK
syllable_count: 686.7 704.065955056 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 6.24550561798 176% => OK
Article: 3.0 4.99550561798 60% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 3.10617977528 129% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 11.0 4.38483146067 251% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 20.2370786517 94% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 23.0359550562 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.5494864193 60.3974514979 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.736842105 118.986275619 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0526315789 23.4991977007 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.26315789474 5.21951772744 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 7.80617977528 13% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 10.2758426966 117% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 5.13820224719 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.243278267561 0.243740707755 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0600249540368 0.0831039109588 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.04775427021 0.0758088955206 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120749787943 0.150359130593 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0440627677383 0.0667264976115 66% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.1392134831 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.8420337079 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.1743820225 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.1639044944 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.42 8.38706741573 112% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 100.480337079 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 11.8971910112 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.2143820225 93% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.7820224719 127% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.