ciceroprofacto

[ciceroprofacto]

I need to ask.

I always wanted to learn how to do good researches or reviews but I do not know no matter how hard I try to do them the correct way. I know the structure but I don't know the rules.

For example...

Citations. Citations are my nightmare, I don't know how to use them, someone told me I should put them in the part I got inspired by it BUT HOW WOULD I KNOW WHAT INSPIRED MEANS.

Let's say I'm writing a review about the importance of informatics throughout story. If I find like five dates of specific events in one paper I found, if I want to use those five dates too would that be plagiarism? Should I put citation on each date?

If I found out someone important said something related to the topic and it's importance, but I found that in a whole 100-page guide from idk the UN in the first pages I read, should I put it? Its irrelevant? I'm not using any more information of that 100-page guide but that phrase - is that legal?

How many citations should I make?

How do I add them without it being plagiarism?

Honestly I'm lost.

Sorry if it's too long, I don't know who else to ask regarding this topic and I find your researches quite neat so...

Just blogging and researching online doesn’t have strict rules. There’s techniques that’ll make you more credible, but those align with academic writing, so I’ll address that.

Rule of thumb, in academic writing, you need to cite every piece of information you introduce. Even if it’s something that you already knew. Even if it seems obvious to you. Adding a source that backs it up lends it authority beyond you. Don’t get wrapped around the axle trying to distinguish what’s “yours” and what’s not. Nothing is yours in a research paper and that’s the point. You’re compiling and curating information to demonstrate your thesis through the aggregation of it.

For your example, you don’t have to use the entirety of a source to cite something out of it. Especially longer sources like books. The entirety of a source doesn’t even have to be relevant to what you’re writing about, it just has to actually say what you’re claiming it does- checking your interpretation of a text might require you to read more than you’re going to use to ensure you have context to confirm this. Beyond that, it’s your job as the researcher to be mindful of what your sources are, how credible they are, and how that might communicate with the way you’re using it.

Also- most citation styles have a shortened form of the citation so that you can reuse sources frequently without doing the long form. Cite every new piece of information that source introduces, and if you have multiple pieces of information from it in a single sentence, cite at the end of the sentence.

My research on Tumblr is not neat and please don’t use that as your benchmark. In-text links is a social media (specifically blog) ism that doesn’t fly in professional research. If you’re just doing online research, using the same overarching guidelines will lend you credibility. Try and find a source for every piece of info or at least clarify where you can’t.

[ciceroprofacto]

Law education in 18th century England

I'm not an English lawyer and my exposure to Cambridge and Middle Temple was brief. Per my previous post, this is just how I understood the English common law education system.

In the US, having a juris doctorate (JD) and passing the Bar examination gives a person the professional title of 'Lawyer'. As a graduate degree, one must have a bachelor's degree in any subject before they can start working towards a JD.

In modern England, the undergraduate degree in law makes someone a lawyer. They enter the field to be either a solicitor or a barrister (barristers argue cases in court and solicitors do everything else). Both have to pass their respective exams before they can formally practice law. Barristers attend an Inn of the Court and continue their education (keeping terms, going to lectures, completing readings, etc) to be "Called to the Bar." In the 18th century, they would've been evaluated by the Inns before being qualified to argue in court.

The Inns are located next to the royal courthouses and barristers live, eat, and study there while practicing law. In the 18th century, The Inns were somewhat like trade guilds for lawyers and they had their own internal governing bodies.

In modern times, a law student would attend a university like Oxford or Cambridge for their law degree before going to one of the Inns, but in the 18th century, gentlemen could be called to the Bar and live at an Inn of the Court without having a formally standardized degree in law as we would think of it today. They would be tradesmen, educated in other relevant areas and they would be trained on some common legal principles while at the Inn.

Here's another helpful article on the evolution of English legal education in the 1760s

[ciceroprofacto]

i do have a question: how exactly would john laurens study warfare? how does one figure out what was taught at older times in colleges?

Linking Paulette Golden's website because it's a fantastic resource for cultural research on the 18th century, specifically in Georgian England. Her focus centers on Oxford and Cambridge. Middle Temple's history page claims that it was in a period of relative decline during the mid-1700s, but it can be assumed, much of Paulette's discussion of pedagogy and university life was also true of Middle Temple.

In essence, gentlemen would grow up being tutored on whatever subjects were relevant to their estate. Then, in university, students had "Fellows" who would conduct guided discussions. There wasn't a standardized curriculum, and they could pursue readings beyond what their fellow assigned. At the end of term, there were oral examinations to determine if a student was properly "read". There were only a few degrees available and they funneled into three basic professions: Law, Medicine, or Religion.

There's a letter from John Laurens to his uncle where he waffled over which one to pursue. Ultimately, he decided on the law. His signature sometimes included the title Esquire which indicates that he passed his examinations before leaving Middle Temple.

In SOA, I have him brag about studying warfare because- after discussing the available professions, Laurens emphasized that he was interested, first and foremost, in being a Soldier. His interest in education extended as far as it allowed him to pursue that. So, I assume that he was using whatever latitude he had with his fellows to read contemporaneous works on strategy and military science.

The only way to know what specific subjects someone studied is if they mentioned specific titles in letters, and if Laurens did that somewhere, I haven't found it.

[ciceroprofacto]

hello! i have a bit of a stupid question. i was reading your post on the timeline of hamilton and laurens, and there have been multiple references to letters which have not been found. do you think it’s possible that they will be found one day, or are they just gone?

When letters are marked not found it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist any more, it just means a letter was referenced elsewhere but I don’t know where it is. Considering the age of these documents, that is a strong possibility. It is also possible that some of them are in a private collection or buried in an archive and simply not transcribed to one of the common sources I was using.

[ciceroprofacto]

hi so. not really in the hamilton fandom anymore but just want to say i read the song of alexander quite a few times when i was and. holy shit dude? it's crazy how well you wrote that and even now i still think of it from time to time. hope you're doing alright and still writing things you like

Thank you for sending this. It's nice to remember that it was appreciated.

I'm juggling a few important degrees right now, so I haven't been as active online (endless excuses since I left undergrad), but I am still writing! It's been more academic/professional/practical lately, but I've been gradually reacquainting myself with the artistic side of things.

[ciceroprofacto]

City Tavern - 30x20 (NO CC)

The City Tavern, built as accurately as possible in the Sims 4! This was the site of General Washington's headquarters, where he and his aides-de-camp stayed in August 1777. (It's currently winter in my game, so the windows are frosted and they lit every fireplace lol)

City Tavern (the restaurant) has been closed since the pandemic, but the official floorplans for the building are available here: Philadelphia Buildings and Architects - City Tavern. I referenced these floorplans alongside photos from the City Tavern website, the Independence National Historical Park page, as well as Google maps and reviews.

I tried to recreate the place as faithfully as possible, though for some areas (i.e. the cellar, the third floor, the garret/attic, etc; a full bath is included for Sim functionality and gameplay), I had to use my imagination - what it might have been like during their stay.

➜ download my TS4 builds: my EA ID is jhocaa / my TS4 builds

[ciceroprofacto]

you can discuss the problems within academia literally forever and you probably should but “historians are trying to keep information from you” is always going to be an anti-intellectual, reactionary opinion, sorry, literally no way around that

[ciceroprofacto]

John Laurens + Suffering

can you tell I've been emo about those old men lately? yeah

click for better quality, + closeups below the cut

1. His First Grief by Charles Spencelayh

saw this and immediately thought of John. not his first grief considering by this estimated age he would've lost older siblings. but thinking of it as a precursor to his mother dying. also the bird is so him :( sorry

2. Ophelia by John Everett Millais

haunts the narrative and is the pushing point for Ham(let)ton's madness yeahhh. plus laying in a creek surrounded by flowers is so him. dead in the swamp

3. Death and the Maiden by Marianne Stokes

originally was going to have john visited by death to be truer to the painting, but an angel in funeral shroud and uniform visiting alex? sorry, had to

4. The Sacrifice of Isaac by Giambattista Pittena

don't get me started. sins of the father, religious extremism, valuing god's word over loving your own son, sacrificing your son for religion/god. only divine intervention could save him and at last it didnt. so many things to think about here. i cried

5. alex when he gets The News

not based on a painting except maybe that anime meme of the girl scream crying. but ohhh my god. idk i just was rereading their letters and got so emo about it. i hope to god alexander got a few good crash-outs in private to grieve but i am really scared of the great possibility that he never did, not even ONE good scream in the middle of nowhere or breaking someone's nose over it, he just buried it and acted out in other ways. it just wasnt fairrr. i keep thinking about Them and especially about how he must have felt the moment he realized. praying it wasnt true. praying. screaming. i am in physical pain over this every day

[ciceroprofacto]

Happy holidays! I've come to you, since you are the unofficial John Laurens expert. How was his physical traits described? And where could I find those information? (especially his hair)

Wow, I don’t know if I’m truly an expert, but thank you for that. :)

Unfortunately, we don’t really have any descriptions of Laurens.  But I’ll break down what we do know.

At the age of 15, he was as tall as his father Henry.  In a letter from October 27, 1769 (one day before John’s 15th birthday), Henry wrote, “my Little Jack, now as big as I am.”  That’s all I’ve been able to figure out from texts in regards to his height.

As for any of his other physical features, I really can’t say I’ve come across anything truly descriptive.  I’ve seen a few sources that say he was handsome, but that doesn’t really say much.  There’s one book that says he has black, curly hair and dark eyes, but this book also tells a story of him punching a fellow law student in the face.  And it also says he went to Oxford (which he didn’t - he attended the Middle Temple), so I wouldn’t really trust it.  The book is called Stories of American History if you want to check it out.

We do have some paintings of Laurens that give us some information.  First, the Peale miniature:

To my knowledge, this is the only painting we have of Laurens that was done while he was alive, so it’s probably our best guess at what he looked like.  (Though I think Peale sometimes had trouble painting male faces.  Just look at his Hamilton portraits.)  As you can tell, Laurens had blue eyes.  As for his hair - ?  His eyebrows are painted a dark color, but that’s not necessarily indicative of his hair color.

Next we have Fraser’s portraits.  Both were done after Laurens’s death.  The first was done around 1802.  I’m not sure when the second was done, but Fraser was born in 1782 (the year Laurens died), so I’m pretty confident that Fraser never met Laurens.  In the spots where Laurens’s hair isn’t powdered, his hair seems to be a light brownish color.

We also have a painting done by Edmonds in the late 1800s or early 1900s - so way after Laurens’s death.  Edmonds gave Laurens blondish hair, but I don’t know how he came to that decision.  It might be accurate, it might not be.  I think it’s based off of Fraser’s full-length portrait.

Here’s Trumbull’s painting Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.  This depicts the surrender at Yorktown, October 19, 1781.  Trumbull painted this in 1820 - after Laurens’s death.  Hamilton is on the right, the person right next to the horse.  Laurens is on Hamilton’s left.  We can’t see much of Laurens’s features here, but it does appear that he was taller than Hamilton.  Hamilton was about 5’7”. 

Here’s a painting of Laurens’s sister Martha, done around 1767 (so she was probably around 7 or 8).  After that is a painting of Laurens’s mother Eleanor, done around 1741 (so she was around 10).  We can guess that he may have looked somewhat like them.  And you can look up images of Henry (his father) if you want.

That’s all I can really tell you.  I hope this helped somewhat.

[ciceroprofacto]

Sometimes I lie awake at nights trying to figure out who William Stephen Hamilton was named after.

(Every single other one of the Hamilton children was named after a relative. Every. Single. One.)

[ciceroprofacto]

Nathan Hale said happy Mardi Gras

[ciceroprofacto]

may I offer you more affectionate lams in this trying time

I'm tickled by the thought of Laurens being charming when you least expect it :) featuring Ham being forward about his affections because I enjoy it

[ciceroprofacto]

from gifs-of-puppets

A Collection of Celestial Comparisons Used by Francis Kinloch to Describe Johannes von Müller

"Adieu_ My historian_ Did we live in a time of Paganism, You might be sure of being made a constellation of at Your death, for one would swear by thy visage, if I remember it right, that thou wast Brother in law at least to the full moon

Adieu my round faced Historian"

-Francis Kinloch to Johannes von Müller, in a letter dated from Paris in 1777 (date line not entirely legible; likely around April based on surrounding letters)

"Adieu, my full Moon, my next letter shall not be so great piece of precherie as this has been_"

-Francis Kinloch to Johannes von Müller, in a letter dated May 1777

"Adieu_ my dearest_ may it be My fate to Shine brighter than her whom You already exceed in the Circular form of Your Physiognomy_"

-Francis Kinloch to Johannes von Müller, in a letter dated May 30, 1777

"When is Your history to gladden my eyes? When it does, I shall change your apellation, & call You no longer the full Moon, but the rising sun, & so make haste_"

-Francis Kinloch to Johannes von Müller, in a letter dated October 12, 1777

[ciceroprofacto]

and then this happens

some old doodles that have been sitting in my files forever - this didn't even make it into my wip bingo cards lol oops - I was inspired by this dance/performance of a kiss that is really beautiful and also really strange? I was impressed but I also wanted to laugh (...they become a helicopter!)

[ciceroprofacto]

Silly man

[ciceroprofacto]

Liberty's Kids & Historical Lams doodles because ❤️💛 real

+ a little bit of laurens angst bc why not :)