<p>Hello, hopefully this is the right place for this question. I've only just finished my first year of school, but I very well may be a teacher eventually. If I really go after it and get a Phd, try to teach at a university, I know that research will be involved. While this seems natural for biology professors etc, what kind of research would an English/lit/history teacher do? </p>
<p>I suppose lit profs could do literary theory stuff (Are literary critics professors usually?). History seems better researched by archaeologists. English perhaps better served by linguists. If anyone has any practical experience or knowledge on the subject it'd be great to hear.</p>
<p>These are all different fields. For instance, a historian would never do the same kind of research as an archaeologist. And a linguist does not study anything close to English literature.</p>
<p>An English professor/student might research, say, images of mechanization early 20th century poetry or the symbiotic relationship between two writers and how it affected their work. They often sift through archives looking for primary sources, although, obviously, a lot of their work is analysis and making connections where no one previously thought to make them.</p>
<p>English professors usually specialize in a specific time period/school – for instance, medieval literature or the Romantics – and can additionally narrow their interest to specific authors. For instance, one of my relatives was an expert on the Brownings.</p>
<p>Beren - welcome to the fora. You’ll find that this tends to be a sciences/engineering hang out, but there are a few humanities types here (I’m Classics, btw). The really cool thing about humanities research is you can go to the places where your subject happened to do the research (e.g. libraries and museums holding a particular author’s papers).</p>
<p>As a first year student you’re still in the “background” phase your education. By the time you get to your 3rd and 4th year (at least in the USA) you’ll be starting to do real research for classes. Many programs have an honors thesis or something similar that will reflect a substantial research effort on your part.</p>
<p>To get an idea of what’s going on in your field, you’ll want to start reading the scholarly journals ASAP. For English, you could start here:</p>
<p>And of course, talk to your professors and academic advisors on a regular basis (you’ll eventually need 3 letters of reccomendation for your grad school applications, so now’s the time to start showing them you’re the kind of student they’d want as a colleague in a few years). If your department has periodic colloquia or other friendly get-togethers, make it a point to attend. You’ll also find that there are several major conferences every year - join the corresponding societies (they often have journal subscriptions as part of their dues) and try to get to the conferences.</p>
<p>Finally, though it may seem weird right now, you’ll need a couple of modern research languages in grad school. If you don’t already have German or French to the point you can read and understand a journal article, add either to your undergrad curriculum right away. Graduate admissions in the humanities are unbelievably competitive so you want to gather all the advantages you can as early as possible in your undergard career.</p>
<p>If you want examples of what kind of research/writing historians produce, go to your library and find the American Historical Review or something comparable.</p>
<p>If you believe that history is best researched by archaeologists, then I am not sure why I’m in grad school for history because digs are definitely not my thing! :)</p>
<p>Ask your professors in the humanities (English, history, etc.) what kind of research they do and for references to get a feel for what an English or history professor might do for the research portion of their job. I guarantee that they will be delighted you asked. Most college undergrads don’t show interest in research in general, much less their own professors’ work. You can ask a couple of professors to make 30-minute appointments or just e-mail you back and forth to talk about their research and what they’re doing and they will probably jump at the chance.</p>
<p>Just as a side note, a lot of people will tell you that in your first year you should concentrate on undergrad and not think about grad school until your third year, but I disagree. It’s important to get started on research earlier to see if you even like it, and those who start earlier have an advantage. I started doing research in my second year of undergrad, and by my fourth year, I wrote an independent thesis in which I conducted my own psychological study.</p>
<p>I also second the advice that if you think you might be remotely interested in attending graduate school in the humanities, pick up a second language. French and German will be the best for those fields. You will need them to get admitted to a PhD program in the field, and even if you decide not to, those languages will still be helpful in other fields or when obtaining work.</p>