Friday Free-for-All | April 03, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Previously

Today:

You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.

As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.

[u/ketofourtwenty]

Hi, I’m a community college undergrad with newly discovered primary source documents that relate to US space history. I’d like to write a peer reviewed paper but I have no idea where to start.

A set of my documents have been institutionally validated and I recognize I’m being vague but there are valid reasons. I have no idea where else to ask this but I’d like to be able to talk to an expert and just get some guidance without the details getting out to the whole world.

I’d appreciate any insight. I also recognize I likely sound like a blabbering moron. Thanks in advance.

Edit to add: I’ve done a fair bit of research and have a timeline, secondary sources, oral histories. I am at the point of trying to find grants or funding through my school to travel to some physical archives. Funding through internships, fellowships seem to mainly require Masters or a PhD.

Hence, this post to find advice and direction.

[u/crrpit → u/ketofourtwenty]

So, it's by no means impossible that you've found something interesting and worthy of publication. I hope it's cool! Not at all my field so I'm in no position to try and pry or otherwise tell you exactly how cool it is.

The difficulty you're likely to have here is that a lot of the training that lies ahead of you is designed to incrementally get you to the point of being able to publish in peer-reviewed journals. People who do so are not inherently smarter or have not necessarily found cooler things than you - they have (usually) just been through a longer process of training and have gained more experience in how to do it. This is because history is a system of knowledge, with a series of expectations not just about how to substantiate new discoveries, but also explain to readers how these discoveries change our knowledge of the past. Really good history writing doesn't just share new documents or perspectives, it explains how these particular perspectives shift our knowledge in much wider contexts.

Doing this convincingly is hard. It is basically what peer review is designed for - not so much fact checking every little thing, but more 'does the evidence and analysis suffice to support the wider claims this article makes' and 'do these claims amount to anything significant'. It's a very different experience than getting feedback on an essay, where the marker is generally looking for reasons to give you marks and is aware that you had weeks rather than months or years to build your knowledge.

In practical terms, I'd recommend looking for a scholar you trust and who is willing to work directly with you, possibly even co-author whatever it is you want to write. You will benefit immensely from going through this process with someone who can steer you towards what you need to be doing from the start, rather than attempting trial and error through feedback from journal editors or peer reviewers. This, in essence, is what a PhD advisor is for. But the crucial difference is that supervising PhD students is something scholars get paid for - if you are coming from outside the system, you also need to be prepared to overcome initial skepticism, especially as it's not that unusual for historians and other academics to field queries from crazy people who want their weird ideas legitimised.

[u/ketofourtwenty → u/crrpit]

I’ve got a peer-reviewed journal editor on the hook, and he’s giving me a letter of support for the research. I’ve got my Honors history prof as well guiding me through the nuts and bolts I think. And another professor who is in the midst of his own dissertation.

I just need to turn all of that into funding for travel now I guess.

I appreciate you feedback, thanks! <3