How valuable is Robert Graves as a source and as a historian? Choose an
event, person, or subject that features in Good-bye to All That and
compare its treatment there with its treatment in The Times (London),
using at least seven references from each (different dates for the latter).
You should be able to focus on a a single year of articles and leading articles
from The Times. Compare and contrast how the two describe the phenomenon
as well as how they evaluate it. Account for differences, or similarities.
Provide two references from secondary sources for context. (Paper due:
25 April, noon, 7+pp., typed, double-spaced; I will read/markup/grade/return
for revision on 20 April, if first draft turned in by 18 April)
(basic chronology of his life & links to additional sources on Graves and the
Great War)
Pre-Paper Assignment
PRE-PAPER ASSIGNMENT 1 (due April 11): Look up microfilm
the Times for your birthday in 1916, 1917, 1918, or 1919. Photocopy
one "leading article" (British term for an editorial) for that date (note
date and page #). And type one paragraph summarizing what editorial is about,
and where The Times stands.
Comments on Past Student Papers
Reports from the Times: you need to find something they do
say--you have not done enough research to say that they never report on something.
Alternatively, you can say that no leading article in a specific year takes
a stand on ____ issue (because you can easily look at all the titles of editorials)
You can look for internal inconsistencies within one source (success followed
by success but over the same territory in the Times, or Graves ignoring
French successes in his same battle area); or use one source to suggest that
the other is mistaken; or use logic to suggest certain things were unlikely
to happen
Quotes for proof (evidence) often help. But long block quotes (indent and
single space) do not do so as often. Quote only what you need, if it is long,
analyze what parts are most relevant. Don't use quotation marks in indented,
single space quotes.
Context: determined by the subject and argument. If the focus is the Somme
we don't need to know about Graves's family.
One paper noted that, P.M. David Lloyd George's speech in Jan. 1918, when
he refused to acceed to Germany's demand for a truce, was opposed only, according
to the Times, by "speeches from the Socialist members of Parliament."
(Jan. 7) This was the view of the Times, that the Labour Party was
Socialist. But it was never completely true (even when they were avowedly
socialist in 1945). Just know that when they write "Socialist" in
the British context, they mean the Labour Party.