History, research and data

What holds these lists together

What connects these lists is caution. In research, in history, in the archive and in statistics, little is asserted and most things are placed: los datos apuntan a, no se puede descartar que, el documento data de — and the middle one is followed by the subjunctive. One word stands here as a warning for English speakers. La evidencia is first of all certainty so plain that nobody can doubt it; the material that supports a claim is las pruebas, or los indicios when it only points one way. Writing evidencia for «evidence» easily claims more than the data allow.

For example: la investigación científica (scientific research), el siglo pasado (the last century), la estadística (statistics as a subject), la archivística (the science of archives), la arqueología (the discipline that destroys what it studies and therefore records it), la escritura de la historia (the writing of history, which has a history of its own)

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.