grapher typically does not go through the same critical analysis of evidence that the biographer does. The autobiographer usually records past events with the idea that there is little or no interpretation needed, besides that which is self-evident to himself or herself. Winks notes that individuals seldom see themselves as others see them. Thus, there is little self-awareness on the part of most autobiographers and their analyses usually suffer.
Winks devotes one whole section to the discovery of "missing evidence," historical evidence which may lead to the most pertinent analysis. Again, Winks notes that many view this phase as the exciting part of the detective work, looking for the piece that will make the whole puzzle fit together. However, Winks seeks to disabuse the budding historian of any notion that this is what history is all about. He says that the historian works by "accretion," accumulating mountains of evidence and sifting through all of it, ignoring nothing when constructing his analysis. In fact, true historical analysis is based upon all the evidence found, not just a few pieces which seem to be the most relevant.
At this point in his book, Winks brings up the interesting issue of whether a historian ought to be bound by some ethical considerations in obtaining evidence. At first thought, there would seem to be no problem in this area, since historians are not usually thought of as doing the same kind of work as private detectives. But the whole point of this book is that historians are performing the same sort of work. And Winks provides some examples where a historian could fun afoul of ethical considerations. For instance, he notes that historian gathering evidence from private papers often runs into the dilemma of misrepresentation. Should he or she lie to a family about how the papers are going to be used? If the papers are those of a religious figure, should the historian lead the caretaker...