Reader pbaum has raised an issue often faced by those who comb history's nooks and crannies: Say I have 10 or more land entries mentioned in the main text, but ....

Reason No. 1: Those records were never created in the first place. Recordkeeping is so commonplace today that our expectations are often skewed. ...

On another list, a researcher just wrote (and I paraphrase for simplicity): “How much citation is enough? I can personally get bogged down in the multiple citations and lose my enthusiasm for the hunt.” EE’s response was a long Hmhh. ....

What is your success rate as a researcher? Does every effort advance your goals or bring you closer to resolving a specific research problem? Do you invest hours that generate no relevant information at all? Do record sets and databases never seem to yield the needed answers to your key questions about events and identities, associations, and relations? Or have you amassed great quantities of data that remind you of the Shakespearean line about “much sound and fury, signifying nothing”? ...

John and June are colleagues in a professional field but work independently of each other. John writes or emails June, asking her thoughts on a matter. June responds. John then publishes June’s response on the Internet. Is there a problem?

Have you read that delightful little business manual, “Who Moved My Cheese”? Yes? No? Or maybe you're wondering: "What does that have to do with history research?"

Citation Police? Puh-leese! Like the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, there’s been an outcropping of alleged sightings lately. No proof, of course. But titillating stories are running wild. All the Police Brigade—the citation police, grammar police, and research police—make handy bogeymen for feeding agendas and nursing grievances; but they divide and handicap. They don’t encourage. They don’t improve us. Can we be practical about this? Historical research is not a them vs. us situation. ...