Historiography is the study by historians of how history is written. When you write a historiographic essay, you think about the methods by which other historians have drawn their conclusions.
If you were writing a historiographic essay about how the cold war affected John F. Kennedy’s policies, you would analyze how other historians have answered this question. What assumptions or biases influenced their choice and interpretation of sources? What methods shaped their work?
Related topics:
Analyzing a written or a visual text
Critical essays
Book reviews
Research papers