Explain This!

Sometimes the problem in genealogy education is not explaining things . . . it's knowing what to explain. Every time I attend a talk for beginners I learn, especially when people ask about things that we no longer recognize as needing to be explained. Two real-life examples:


"What is the DAR?"

"What is a 'census'?"

As a writer, I know that even just one undefined (or unclear) term is likely to doom a whole paragraph (or article, or book). Readers will slide over it and then discover themselves in a swamp of mysterious verbiage, and give up in puzzlement. Same goes double for lectures.

Good beginners will ask these questions. But, quite aside from the embarrassment, it can be hard to know how to ask.

I'm frequently on the other side of this gulf when talking about technology hardware and software. If I don't ask, I'm going to be under water so fast . . .

Whether I'm on the asking end or the answering end, what's usually needed is not a dictionary definition, but a vivid example showing how it's used in practice. The definition can come later if at all.

So two teaching talents are called for here: recognizing what needs to be explained, and finding ways to do so effectively.



Photo credit: MrJVTod's photostream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrvjtod/196799758/ : accessed 7 October 2012, per Creative Commons.

Harold Henderson, "Explain This!," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]