Margaret Schaus Haverford College Profile & Guides |
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Semyon Khokhlov Haverford College Profile & Guides |
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Dance, Dutch, circa 1568, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Companions and handbooks are very helpful kinds of sources. They are edited by leading scholars in the particular areas of research, and those editors commission researchers to write individual essays on the subjects which are their areas of interest. As a result, students get a much better understanding of the issues involved in a particular subject area, since the authors go beyond factual summaries to analysis of differing arguments in the field.