How to Achieve Objectivity in History: A Step-by-Step Procedure

How to Achieve Objectivity in History: A Step-by-Step Procedure

Estimated Reading Time: 8-10 minutes

Why Objectivity in History Matters More Than Ever

If you’re searching for how to achieve objectivity in history, you’re likely facing one of academia’s most challenging problems: how to write about the past without letting your perspective, values, or biases distort the truth. Whether you’re a student working on a thesis, a researcher conducting historical analysis, or an academic writing for publication, this struggle is real and deeply consequential.

Here’s what makes this particularly difficult: every historian brings their own lens to the material. Your background, beliefs, national identity, and contemporary concerns inevitably influence how you interpret evidence. Yet producing truly objective historical work is non-negotiable if you want your research to be credible, publishable, and taken seriously by the academic community.

The good news? You don’t have to navigate this alone. Many students and researchers find that achieving the required level of methodological rigor and objectivity is overwhelming when combined with their other academic commitments. This is exactly where PremiumResearchers specializes. Our team of experienced historians and academic writers understands the nuanced demands of objective historical research. We follow established methodological principles, employ diverse sourcing strategies, and maintain rigorous standards of evidence evaluation. Whether you need help with a research paper, thesis chapter, or complete historical analysis, we can guide you through achieving the objectivity your work requires, or handle the complex research process professionally for you.

Before we explore solutions, let’s understand the fundamental challenge you’re facing.

What Does Objectivity Really Mean in Historical Research?

Objectivity in history doesn’t mean being a blank slate without opinions. That’s impossible and, frankly, not what historians should aim for. Instead, historical objectivity refers to your ability to analyze and interpret evidence without allowing personal prejudice, emotional attachment, or unexamined assumptions to distort your conclusions.

Defining Historical Objectivity

Leopold Von Ranke, a foundational figure in modern historical methodology, famously defined objectivity as “describing the past as it happened.” This sounds simple but carries profound implications. It means basing your conclusions strictly on evidence derived from reliable sources, nothing more and nothing less.

Philosophers like Mark Day have described historical objectivity more technically as an epistemic standard where historical accounts result solely from the object of inquiry itself, without reflecting the historian’s personal characteristics, social position, or contemporary political concerns. In practical terms, this is similar to how a judge must operate in a courtroom: hear all testimony, examine all evidence impartially, and render judgment based exclusively on facts, regardless of personal preferences.

Understanding Objectivity Versus Neutrality

Here’s a critical distinction: objectivity doesn’t require complete neutrality or the elimination of all interpretive frameworks. Every historian brings theoretical knowledge, intellectual training, and methodological approaches to their work. The goal isn’t to eliminate these but to acknowledge them and prevent them from distorting historical truth.

You can be passionate about your subject while remaining objective about your analysis. You can hold strong values while refusing to let those values cherry-pick your evidence. This balance represents the heart of professional historical work.

The Major Obstacles Preventing Historical Objectivity

Before you can overcome barriers to objectivity, you must understand what creates them. These obstacles are formidable but recognizable, which is the first step toward managing them.

Personal Bias and Confirmation Bias

Every person carries likes, dislikes, preferences, and deeply ingrained mental frameworks. Often, you don’t consciously recognize these biases in yourself. The problem emerges when your personal worldview unconsciously influences which evidence you emphasize and which you downplay. Confirmation bias, the psychological tendency to favor information confirming existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence, represents one of the most insidious threats to objective historical writing. You might read a source skeptically because it contradicts your hypothesis while accepting another source uncritically because it supports your view. This happens without deliberate dishonesty.

Group Identity and Social Position

Historians don’t exist in isolation. Your race, religion, nationality, socioeconomic background, political ideology, and cultural heritage inevitably influence your interpretive lens. Historical scholarship demonstrates this consistently. Consider Eurocentric history, where Western historians portrayed entire African civilizations as backward and barbaric, completely ignoring sophisticated social structures, advanced agricultural systems, and rich cultural traditions. This wasn’t accidental; it reflected the group interests and worldviews of dominant historians writing during periods of colonialism and imperial expansion.

When historians unconsciously favor interpretations that validate their own group’s narrative or advance their group’s interests, objectivity suffers dramatically. History becomes the story told by whoever held power and possessed the platform to publish their work.

Value-Related Judgments and Presentism

Your attitudes toward politics, economics, religion, and social systems inevitably influence historical interpretation. A historian sympathetic to socialist ideology will interpret economic history differently than one favoring capitalism. A religious historian may interpret religious movements differently than a secular scholar. This isn’t necessarily dishonest; it’s recognizing that values shape interpretation.

The critical problem occurs when historians engage in presentism: judging historical actors by modern standards rather than understanding them within their own temporal and cultural context. You might condemn historical figures for practices accepted in their era, rather than understanding the specific constraints, knowledge, and values of their time. This distorts historical truth by imposing contemporary moral frameworks onto past contexts where those frameworks didn’t apply.

The Unavoidable Selection Problem

Here’s an obstacle you cannot escape: historians cannot possibly include every detail about any historical period. You must select which facts matter, which patterns deserve emphasis, and which details to omit. This selection process inherently introduces subjectivity. A historian writing “The History of England” cannot possibly cover everything; the very act of selection means deciding what counts as important. History becomes, by necessity, fragmented and selective.

The Nature of Historical Evidence Itself

Historical events no longer exist except in how historians reconstruct them from surviving materials. This reconstruction inevitably involves interpretation. Unlike scientists who can repeatedly test hypotheses through experiments, historians cannot recreate the past or run controlled experiments. You work with fragments: documents that survived, artifacts that didn’t decay, testimonies that were recorded, and materials that happened to be preserved. What survived might not represent the full historical picture. Crucial evidence might be missing entirely. Moreover, your present moment inevitably influences which historical questions you find relevant and how you interpret what survived.

Nine Practical Steps to Achieve Greater Objectivity

Despite these formidable obstacles, historians can take concrete, deliberate steps to minimize bias and approach greater objectivity. These aren’t theoretical ideals; they represent practical methodologies that professional historians employ consistently.

1. Follow Established Historical Laws of Interpretation

Professional historians adhere to established methodological principles when analyzing evidence. This means applying no bias or prejudice in selecting which evidence to examine. Facts must be depicted accurately based on available evidence alone, not on what would make a more compelling narrative or support your preferred conclusion. When you’re tempted to downplay evidence that contradicts your hypothesis or overemphasize evidence that supports it, these laws of interpretation serve as guardrails keeping you honest.

2. Question Sources With Judicial Rigor

Adopt the critical questioning approach a judge uses in court. Regardless of your personal preferences or preconceived ideas, you must determine what evidence actually says. This means interrogating every source: Is this document credible? Who created it and what were their motivations? What perspective did they hold? What might they have hidden, exaggerated, or downplayed? What was their social position? Did they have reasons to distort the truth? A medieval chronicle written by a monastery might reflect the Church’s interests rather than objective fact. A government report might contain propaganda. Recognizing this doesn’t mean dismissing the source, but rather understanding its limitations.

3. Apply the Principle of Corroboration

When facing conflicting theories or interpretations, seek points where multiple independent sources agree. Corroboration, where different witnesses, documents, or artifacts all point toward the same conclusion, provides significantly stronger evidence than any single source alone. If an event is described consistently across sources created independently by people with different perspectives and biases, that consistency becomes compelling evidence. Conversely, when sources wildly disagree, you must dig deeper to understand why. This methodology naturally resists cherry-picking evidence because you’re actively looking for confirmation from multiple directions.

4. Consult Diverse Sources Across Disciplines

Limiting research to a narrow range of sources almost guarantees bias. Objective historians consult archaeology, linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and various documentary records. If you’re studying a particular historical period, diverse sources help cross-check information and reveal biases present in individual sources. For example, if written records from elite administrators tell one story, but archaeological evidence reveals something different, that contradiction demands investigation. The combination produces richer, more balanced understanding than relying on a single source type.

5. Never Suppress or Distort Inconvenient Evidence

This represents an ethical obligation fundamental to objective historical work. You must never deliberately suppress evidence or twist its meaning to project a particular viewpoint, even when that evidence contradicts cherished theories or preferred narratives. This requires honesty that can feel painful. If you’ve built an argument on a particular interpretation, and new evidence undermines it, your professional obligation is to acknowledge that evidence and revise your thinking. Respecting evidence means presenting it fairly and completely, even when inconvenient. Readers can evaluate your conclusions only if you’re transparent about all available evidence.

6. Study the Historian Before Studying Their Facts

E.H. Carr, a prominent historian, wisely advised studying the historian before studying their work, and studying the historian’s historical and social environment before studying the historian themselves. When you read a historical work, research who wrote it, when they wrote it, what their background was, and what contemporary circumstances surrounded their work. A historian writing about colonialism in 1960 operated in a different context than one writing in 2024. Understanding these backgrounds helps you identify potential biases and evaluate work more critically. This applies to your own work too; understanding your biases helps readers contextualize your perspective.

7. Maintain Psychological and Emotional Distance

Passion for your subject can fuel excellent research, but it shouldn’t cloud your judgment. If you’re studying a historical atrocity, your emotional reaction is understandable and human. However, those emotions must not distort your analytical work. Creating psychological distance from subject matter allows for more balanced assessment. Some historians describe this as developing a “scholarly persona” that operates separately from their personal emotions. You can care deeply about your subject while analyzing it objectively. The key is recognizing when emotion threatens to override evidence-based reasoning and deliberately stepping back.

8. Be Transparent About Methods, Sources, and Limitations

Objective historians acknowledge their methods, reveal their sources, and admit the limitations of their work. Make clear what you know with confidence, what you infer from evidence, and what remains uncertain. If you’re missing crucial sources, say so. If your evidence comes primarily from one perspective, acknowledge that limitation. If certain questions remain unanswerable with available evidence, admit it. This transparency allows readers to evaluate your work independently and understand its scope. It also demonstrates the intellectual honesty that characterizes professional scholarship. Readers appreciate honesty about limitations more than they appreciate pretense of absolute certainty.

9. Actively Seek Out and Engage With Opposing Interpretations

Before reaching conclusions, seriously consider alternative interpretations. What would someone from a different background, ideology, or era make of this evidence? What interpretations exist that contradict yours? Rather than dismissing rival interpretations, engage with them seriously. Address their strongest arguments rather than attacking weak versions. This practice strengthens your own work by forcing you to anticipate objections and reveal your own blind spots. It also demonstrates intellectual maturity and honesty that academic readers recognize and respect.

Why Pursue Objectivity When Perfect Objectivity Is Impossible?

Here’s a philosophical question that troubles many researchers: If complete objectivity is impossible, why pursue it? Keith Jenkins and other postmodern historians have argued that since the actual past is gone, and historians necessarily recreate history in the present moment, content is “as much invented as found.” Since historians cannot remove preconceived ideas and personal motives entirely, some subjectivity remains inevitable.

This argument, while containing truth, leads to a dangerous conclusion if taken too far. Yes, complete objectivity may remain unattainable. But this philosophical limitation should absolutely not discourage you from pursuing objectivity. The difference between history that earnestly attempts objectivity and history that embraces bias is profound.

The Value of Imperfect Objectivity

Even imperfect objectivity produces substantially better scholarship than narratives that abandon the pursuit. Objective interpretations, even if incomplete, meet rational criteria of accuracy, comprehensiveness, consistency, and openness to revision based on new evidence. They can be tested, challenged, refined, and improved. Biased narratives that deliberately suppress inconvenient evidence or promote particular ideological agendas cannot be similarly tested or improved; they’re designed to persuade rather than to illuminate.

Recognition that perfect objectivity is impossible actually makes historians more careful, more self-aware, and more honest about their limitations. It encourages intellectual humility and ongoing refinement of methods. The pursuit of objectivity, even as an asymptotic goal that approaches but never fully reaches perfect neutrality, elevates historical scholarship above mere propaganda or storytelling.

Contemporary Urgency of Objective History

In our current moment, where misinformation spreads rapidly and competing narratives battle constantly for dominance, objective historical research matters more than ever. History shapes national identities, informs policy decisions, and influences how societies understand themselves. Biased or inaccurate historical interpretations can distort present understanding, perpetuate harmful myths, fuel social conflicts, and undermine cohesion. Objective historical work serves as a counterbalance to propaganda, distortion, and ideologically-driven mythology.

If you’re struggling to apply these principles to your own work, or if you recognize that the complexity of maintaining objectivity while producing publishable research exceeds what you can manage alone, reach out to PremiumResearchers via WhatsApp or email our team. Our experienced researchers understand exactly how challenging this balance is. We specialize in producing historically rigorous, methodologically sound, and genuinely objective research that meets the highest academic standards.

Achieving Objectivity in Historical Research Requires Professional Standards

Achieving objectivity in historical research demands constant vigilance, rigorous methodology, intellectual honesty, and deep commitment to truth over convenience. It requires that historians acknowledge their biases, actively embrace diverse perspectives, allow evidence to lead conclusions rather than selecting evidence to support predetermined conclusions, and remain genuinely open to revising beliefs when new evidence emerges.

The journey toward complete objectivity may be endless, but each step along that path brings you closer to understanding the past as it actually was, not as ideology, personal preference, or contemporary bias might wish it had been. This understanding, imperfect though it may be, represents one of humanity’s highest intellectual achievements.

However, achieving this standard while juggling coursework, other responsibilities, or professional deadlines creates genuine stress. The complexity of source evaluation, the psychological challenge of managing personal bias, the technical demands of proper citation and methodology, and the writing skill required to present complex arguments clearly combine to create a formidable challenge.

This is precisely why PremiumResearchers exists. Our team brings years of experience in academic and professional research writing across all disciplines, including history. We understand the delicate balance between thorough research, analytical rigor, and objective presentation. We follow established methodological principles, consult diverse sources, maintain the highest standards of academic integrity, and produce work that stands up to rigorous academic scrutiny.

Whether you need guidance on applying these principles to your own work, or whether you need professional researchers to handle the complex research process for you, we’re here to help. Contact us via WhatsApp or email PremiumResearchers today to discuss your specific needs.

Frequently Asked Questions About Historical Objectivity