Class Notes October 17

October 17, 2012 · by · in Class Notes, Maps and Spatial Analysis

Reading Review

William G. Thomas III and Edward L. Ayers, “The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities.”

  • Goals
    • Non-linear presentation of data
    • Driven by paradox seen in secondary literature: “The difference slavery made is widely recognized to be profound and yet study after study has shown that slavery did little to create differences between North and South in voting patterns, wealth distributions, occupation levels, and other measurable indices.”
  • Comparative Case Study
    • Why these two counties?
  • Mode of Presentation
  • Strengths/Weaknesses of Essay
    • Validity of question
    • Strength of evidence
    • Accuracy of interpretation and analysis of evidence
  • Technologies (GIS, XML, SPSS)
  • Data sets

Group Work

  • Historicizing your topic
  • Establish a plan for digesting the secondary sources you’ve identified as background reading on your topic by next Wednesday (and any others you’ll need to add).
  • Make sure you have a communication system in place and a process for documenting all communication

Examples of Maps