PHILIPPINE WOMEN’S

UNIVERSITY
CDCEC CALAMBA
SCHOOL YEAR 2022-2023

CHAPTER 5:
DOING HISTORY:
A GUIDE FOR
STUDENTS
ROY G. BENEDICTO
INSTRUCTOR
Introduction
It is not enough that we know our
history. We must realize that as agents of
social change, we can contribute to the
narrative of the nation by participating in
writing about our past and our present.
Doing Historical Research Online
Cyberspace is a great resource for
research if you know how to use it
properly. Remember that just because
information is available does not mean
you should just get it right away,
appropriating something such as an idea,
as yours is considered plagiarism.
According to the Merriam-Webster
online dictionary, to "plagiarize"
means:
 to steal and pass off (the ideas
or words of another) as one's own.

 to use (another's production)

without crediting the source.
 to commit literary theft.

 to present as new and original

an idea or product derived from an
existing source.
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
❖ turning in someone else's work as your
own.
❖ copying words or ideas from someone else
without giving credit.
❖ failing to put a quotation in quotation
marks.
❖ giving incorrect information about the
source of a quotation.
❖ changing words but copying the
sentence structure of a source without
giving credit.
❖ copying so many words or ideas from
a source that it makes up the majority
of your work, whether you give credit
or not.
A simple skill that will get you far in
doing historical research online is
knowing where to look and how to
look. Search engines such as:
⮚ Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
⮚ Google (www.google.com)
Search Engines could lead you to a
lot of sources with the right search
strings (a combination of words that
you use to come up with relevant
results and lead you to what you are
looking for.) The more refined your
search strings is, the more definite
the results will be.
Google also provides its own
customized platform for scholarly
research, called Google Scholar
(www.scholar.google.com). You may
use it to find:
❖Journal articles
❖Materials from Institutional
repositories
❖Book chapters from different sources
Google Books (www.books.google.com)
also provides sources for scanned books,
where you may be able to read some
chapters for free. This could be useful if
you want to know if a certain book would
be useful to your research before going to
a physical library to loan the book or
photocopy pages of it.
Sometimes a simple search online is all you
need to find the data you are looking for.
And most often, one of the first result that
will come out will be pages from Wikipedia.
(Considered as the biggest open source
encyclopedia in the whole cyberspace.) In
2017 it has 40 million articles in 293
languages.
There are website that you may use to legally
download scanned copies of books and other
materials for free, especially those books with
expired copyrights and are in public domain.
Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) is the
oldest digital library in the world, founded in
1971. It has more than 50,000 items in its
collection, which includes many works
concerning the Philippines.
Example of book collection from the
Project Gutenberg:

1. Doctrina Cristiana (the first published book in the Philippines)

2. Travels in the Philippines by: Feodor Jagor
3. Estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1810 by: Tomas de Comyn
4. The Peopling of the Philippines by: Rudolf Virchow
5. Lineage, Life And Labors Of Jose Rizal by: Austin Craig
6. The Philippine Islands: 1493-1898 by: Emma Helen Blair and
James Alexander Robertson
Another online archive you may use is
Internet Archive (www.archive.org) an online
library that originally sought to archive web
history, but grew later to provide digital
versions of other works. The archive
contains 279 billion web pages, 11 million
books and texts, 4 million audio recordings,
3 million videos, 1 million images and
100,000 software programs.
Philippine Government Websites
(www.gov.ph) are starting to be enriched with
sources that may be used for historical
research especially on laws and other
government issuances that may be useful
when doing topics of a more contemporary
period. Websites of newspapers, magazines,
broadcasting stations, and other media
outlets usually keep an archive of their
articles from a particular date.
 Doing Historical
Research in Libraries
and Archives
Library- is a collection of sources of
information and similar resources,
made accessible to a defined
community for reference or
borrowing. It provides physical or
digital access to material, and may
be a physical building or room, or a
virtual space, or both.
Archives- is an accumulation of historical
records or the physical place they are
located. Archives contain primary source
documents that have accumulated over the
course of an individual or organization's
lifetime, and are kept to show the function of
that person or organization.
Research in libraries and archives is
necessary in the study of history as these are
bases of primary and secondary sources that
allow us to create narratives of the past
through accepted methods of historical
scholarship. It is imperative upon students to
be able to develop an aptitude toward doing
research in these venues so as to further
develop their skills in historical research
Nowadays, libraries have forgone the tedious
and antiquated card cataloging system and
have been using the digital version to catalog
their holdings, called OPAC or Online Public
Access Catalog. An online library catalog is
an electronic bibliographic database that
describes the books, videotapes, periodicals,
etc. carried by a particular library. The online
library catalog evolved from a printed source,
the library card catalog.
The National Library of the Philippines in
Ermita, Manila provides a rich treasure trove
of materials for the student-researcher
interested in Philippine History, especially in
their Filipiniana section which includes:
a. It has a valuable Rizaliana collection,
b. several sets of Blair and Robertson’s
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898,
c. rare Filipiniana books,
d. Philippine Presidential Papers
Research in archives may be a lot more
difficult and prove to be too advanced, but will
provide you with many sources not available
in the usual libraries.
The National Archives of the Philippines, also
in Manila, founded on May 21, 2007, is an
agency of the government mandated to
collect, store, preserve, and make available
records of the government and other primary
sources pertaining to the history and
development of the Philippines.
The Juan Luna Building caught fire on the
morning of May 28, 2018. Affected by the blaze
is the National Archives of the Philippines,
housed in the almost-century old structure.

Those who understand the value of history also

know what the nation stands to lose should its
most vital records end in ashes
University Libraries Accessible to the Public:

1. University of the Philippines Diliman,

Quezon City, (Gonzales Hall)
2. The Ateneo de Manila University,
Quezon City
3. University of Santo Tomas, España,
Manila
Private Libraries Accessible to the Public:

1. The Family History Center,

Mabalacat, Pampanga
2. Chinben See Memorial Library,
Intramuros, Manila
3. Archdiocesan Archives of Manila,
Maraming salamat sa isang semester na
pag-aaral ng ating kasaysayan. Nawa ay may
natutunan kayo…… kahit konti……

Muli salamat………