History Academic Editing Services

Interpreting the historical record

It is often said that “history is written by the victors”; ironically, the source of that quote has all but been lost over time. However, one of the oldest examples of writing in existence is a response in cuneiform to a plea for help that was found in the city of Ugarit. The response apologizes that the writer cannot sent troops to aid them in the struggle against sea raiders, as they themselves are besieged. The clay tablet was found in the remains of a kiln, with foreign-made arrows scattered about.

Pithy statements such as that about history being written by the victors sound correct but are often mistaken and may mislead people into believing falsehoods. The proper attribution of sources and the careful checking of work can help preserve truth, no matter how counterintuitive or simply contrary to received wisdom. The historical record is often preserved solely through happenstance such as the preservation of the kiln, diligent stewardship of libraries or other such repositories, or more commonly, extrapolation from unwritten evidence such as the excavation of fossil records and burial sites.

The literature written about such discoveries is often shared among the scientific community and then wildly misrepresented by the mainstream media in much the same manner as pharmaceutical and zoological discoveries. It is essential that such literature be word perfect, not only so that it is accepted for publication by reputable scientific journals but also so that fact-checking companies such as Snopes investigating the source of the more hysterical claims of tabloid newspapers do not find that their outlandish stories have been stoked by any accidental misrepresentation of data by authors.

History academic editing services are essential in this regard, whether the author is writing in their native or a second language, as the fresh eyes of an academic editor can provide a higher-level perspective on work to spot everything from simple grammar mistakes to overall inconsistencies in a paper.

Culture and historical perspective

For much of recent human history, there has been a Eurocentric view of culture and civilization; for example, civilizations such as those of the Incans and native North Americans were dismissed as barbarism by (essentially racist) explorers and settlers who often swept away thousands of years of heritage in search of precious minerals, metals, and farmland. This has only started being redressed in certain areas and has often been far too late to be effective. For instance, it has only recently been acknowledged that the Amazon jungle used to be host to numerous cities; tales of such were initially discounted as myths designed to lead conquistadors to their deaths in the unforgiving environment of the jungle, but recovered artifacts such as pottery seem to lend credence to such tales.

Modern exploration of such areas is further complicated by militias and drug cartels that operate there. Exploration has been made much easier by recent technological advancements such as satellite mapping and GPS navigation, but the scientific method required of authors when writing up their discoveries must strive for a consistent style so that future writers can reference works correctly and build consensus. This is where a competent history academic editing service is of most use because the editors they employ will have hundreds of hours of experience ensuring that their work conforms to the style that each client requires.

Of course, history academics are not solely Indiana Jones types, on the run from Nazis through ancient ruins. It is no exaggeration to say that many serious academics prefer to examine artifacts in laboratory conditions with scientific equipment that would probably be rendered inoperable by any attempt to transport it to a dig site—including carbon dating equipment, mass spectrometers, and x-ray cameras. Many significant discoveries regarding the composition of aspects of artifacts have been made in laboratories; for example, it was recently discovered that dinosaurs’ diets could be ascertained in greater detail by examining the composition of the plaque bacteria that had become encrusted to their teeth throughout their lives.

There was an unfortunate tendency in Victorian times to carefully clean and prepare fossilized remains for display that removed much of the DNA and other such information that would often accompany remains. Unfortunately, no archaeologist could have conceived of retrieving information from such detritus in the era in which many of the more famous discoveries were made, leading to the modern circumstance in which we are incredibly grateful for the careful preservation of the fossil record but see the loss of extra potential information as a crying shame.

Working with written sources

Written historical information has a similar range of problems. Works such as the Bible are often third-hand accounts, and the meaning of passages may be accidentally or intentionally altered through error or bias introduced by a translator. The Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the earliest examples of editing known to man, include early versions of Bible passages and omitted gospels—according to one omitted gospel, there were dragons present at Jesus Christ’s birth. The recovery and thorough examination of all recovered writing is incredibly useful for building a picture of human civilization throughout the ages, although it often paints a clearer picture of the authors than the events they describe.

There have been various significant losses of information throughout history such as the destruction of the Library of Alexandria; however, whether the cause has been one of countless wars, natural or man-made disasters, or simple lack of care, the destruction of collections of the written word throughout history has been tragic but has led to the development of resources for sharing information such as the Internet and for protecting information with apocalypse-proof storage media such as precision-laser-etched metal blocks to preserve the historical record for millennia to come even if the human race itself falters.

Ensuring that information has been recorded in a manner that is conducive to preservation is a very important aspect of careful storage. Uniformity in style of the type that can be ensured by a history academic editing service ensures not only that future researchers can easily access your work to reference its findings in their own papers but also that it stands a greater chance of being preserved for posterity’s sake.

Journals that cover humanities subjects such as history typically ask that submissions be in MLA format, and although authors should be familiar with the core formatting guidelines required of the work they submit, such as naming the references page ‘Works Cited’, there are many fringe rules for outlier circumstances of which regular authors may be unaware through simple lack of experience. This is where history academic editing services can come in handy for even the most proficient of authors, as they can provide a level of reassurance that the work will meet the expectations of either the dissertation review board or journal submission reviewer to whom it is being submitted.

Depending on the recipient, errors in submissions may result in anything from lost marks to rejection of a submission, delaying publication and reducing the progress toward the common goal of understanding to which we should all strive.