Dr. Matt Kuefler

5. SPECULATION

How do I avoid basing my essay too much on speculation?

All history essays are supposed to shed light on the past, and since none of us have lived in the past -- well, except for the most recent past -- we must rely on facts supplied by those who lived through the times we're describing. The historical sources, whether primary or secondary, provide you with the facts from which you must develop your thesis, your main points, and from which you must take your examples.

Is speculation always a bad thing?

Not at all. A certain amount of speculation is a good thing. Speculation is usually good when it makes connections between ideas that might otherwise be missed, or fills in gaps in the historical record that themselves provide a key piece of evidence. Speculation is usually bad when it attempts to generalize from one or a few examples to a whole period or society, or when it tries to provide a motive for the actions of people living in the past.

Example:

Suppose the primary source you're interpreting is the legend of Adam and Eve from the Bible.

Good speculation: The legend never says that the serpent who tempts Eve is the Devil, although the wickedness of this animal is assumed in the legend.

This speculation offers insight into what is not in the source.

Good speculation: Even while the legend has Eve punished for her sin with inferiority to Adam, a certain degree of inferiority is already assumed in the story by having her created after Adam and from part of his body.

This speculation makes a connection between different elements of the source.

Bad speculation: The legend of Adam and Eve shows us that all ancient peoples conceived of the notion of a divinity who had created them.

This speculation makes too much of a generalization: we do not know the legends of all ancient peoples, so we cannot know whether they all had notions of a divinity or not, let alone a divine creator. All that the legend of Adam and Eve shows us is that ancient Hebrews conceived of the notion of a divinity who created them, and that would be a good speculation. A better speculation would be to say that the anonymous author of the legend conceived of the notion of a divinity who had created humanity, since we cannot know how many ancient Hebrews shared this belief.

Bad speculation: The author of the legend of Adam and Eve clearly intended to impress upon women the need to obey their husbands and to limit their independent actions.

This speculation makes an assumption of motive that cannot be proven or disproven: since the author of the legend is at least anonymous, and since the legend was probably composed over centuries and by several authors, it is too simplistic to represent its ideas as the work of one person, and to decide what that person's motives were in writing. Even when an author is known, it is risky to decide what his or her motives for writing were. It would be better to soften a statement such as this, taking out "clearly" and adding "perhaps" or "possibly" or some other word to show that it is a speculation. It would be best, if you feel it necessary to discuss motives for writing or for other historical actions, to offer a couple of possible motives, to show that speculation can take someone in a variety of directions.

Better speculation: The author of the legend of Adam and Eve -- insofar as the legend had a single author -- possibly intended to impress upon women the need to obey their husbands and to limit their independent actions; another possibility is that the author wanted to warn anyone of the dangers of disobeying any authority.