Journal Article:

Prompt: imagine that you are a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Would you write from the first person, personal narrative style? Alternatively, would you construct a monograph (book), or article (for journals) based entirely of lists of statistics, primary, and secondary sources?

Task: Write 100-200 words explaining which method you would use, and why.

The methods are listed below

1. Night, is a personal narrative, written in the first person. It is an autobiographical narrative of the Holocaust as seen through a young man's eyes.


2. Typical historical writing, constructed of primary, and secondary, sources. As found on www.wikipedia.org. The point-of-view, is the third person, and is non-narrative.




Fig. 1: This is a FIRST person point-of-view.

Note:

First person writing uses "I", "we", or "us" to discuss and explain events. Most autobiographical writing is in this this point-of-view. Imagine it as seeing from someone's eyes.

An example: "I got up this morning and ate cheerios, they were very tasty. After that my mother and I went to the park. We saw many different things. She was unable to eat more cheerios, so I ate the rest."

Third person, explains events from a distance. Most historical writing is written from a third person, omniscient, point of view. Imagine you are seeing from God's eyes, and watching the world.

An example: "Today Tom got up, he walked down the corridor and kissed bellana on the forehead. After doing this he saw Harry, who wasn't happy to see him, but he honestly did not care. Finally, the ship they were traveling on exploded. Many were sad to see this happen."

Fig. 2: This is a THIRD person point-of-view.

As you can see, third person omniscient style allows for the destruction of all people in a story, without any problems. This is why it works for historical writing.

Primary and Secondary Sources:

A primary source is information from somewhere, or something, that was at an event. An interview with a survivor of a plane crash is a primary source. Also, examining the plane would give you primary evidence about the plane crash.

A secondary source is if you saw that interview in the newspaper, and used that information to make your own judgments. Almost all student writing uses secondary sources, which is acceptable, but it's important to know the difference.