issue110

蔓草菊UID: 2195399

Issue110
When we concern ourselves with the study of history, we become storytellers. Because we can never know the past directly but must construct it by interpreting evidence, exploring history is more of a creative enterprise than it is an objective pursuit. All historians are storytellers.
1 On one hand, the aims and functions of historians and storytellers are quite different.
2 On the other hand, the tools which historians and storytellers depend on are different too.
3 admittedly

What happened in the past is far from now. We cannot know it directly, because time cannot come back. All we can do is to interpret evidence such as old documents, some ancient artifacts. Historians usually resort to these concrete objects to present the past. Because of the ground which the study of history bases on, exploring history indeed is an objective pursuit rather than subjective imagination which is the basic condition a storyteller should have. There are many distinctive differences between historians and storytellers. So I strongly disagree that all historians are storytellers.
On one hand, the aims and functions of historians and storytellers are quite different. The study of history is to reconstruct the past as objective as possible and guide our direction of behaviors. With the help of historians, we are able to know how our ancestors live and how the progresses evolve. At the same time, through the research of the past, many rules of nature and social development can be found. Those rules are very beneficial to us. We can avoid some mistakes which our ancestors encountered and based on the experiences we can make more progresses. On the contrary, story-telling is a creative art. It aims at improving the lever of one’s imagination and relaxing one’s mind. Although, some times many storytellers want to instruct children to act morally and legally by describing a story, they always bring their subjective ideas to emphasize the instructive effect of the story.
On the other hand, the tools which historians and storytellers depend on are different too. Historians always try their best to find convincing and scientific measurements to illustrate what they want to substantiate. Due to the progress of science and technology, more and more scientific methods and modern instruments are used by historians in their work. In many aspects, to illustrate some obfuscated issues historians must take advantage of some chemical, biological methods. For example, isotope 12 of carbon is used to determine the age of artifacts; with the technology of DNA identification. Some animal fossils can be classified; with the computer technology’s help, historians can put the large demographic statistic into computer and run a simulation based on this data. Because those methods have been proven scientific, the result of interpretation of the past will be reasonable. Therefore, historians are able to tell the truth. However, when telling a story, the only tool used by storytellers is their imagination. Usually, the more imaginative the storyteller is, the more vivid the story is. Therefore, it may take months even years to interpret substantial evidence for historians, while it only takes minutes to fabricate a story for storytellers.
Admittedly, due to the loss of some records from time to time, Historians have to speculate and reconstruct the history through more or less their mind, in this case, historians seem to be “storytellers”. But what they think must base on their wide knowledge, logical induction and scientific preciseness. As time goes, many related proofs may be found and the case can be substantiated further by later historians.
All in all, historians contribute a lot to our human beings. Through the study of history we can learn much knowledge about our culture and so on. Without a fair mind a historian is likely to be a storyteller and what he presents may confuse us. Without storytellers, we just lose some interesting stories to relax ourselves, but without historians, we will lose ourselves and can not find the direction of progress. Understanding the past exactly can make our future better.

hemaUID: 2190745

What happened in the past is far from now. We cannot know it directly, because time cannot come back. All we can do is to interpret evidence such as old documents, some ancient artifacts. Historians usually resort to these concrete objects to present the past.(感觉有点隐诲) Because of the ground which the study of history bases on, exploring history indeed is an objective pursuit rather than subjective imagination which is the basic condition a storyteller should have. There are many distinctive differences between historians and storytellers. So I strongly disagree that all historians are storytellers.(表明作者的总观点，指出historian和storyteller不一样，只是首段好像稍微太长)
On one hand, the aims and functions of historians and storytellers are quite different. The study of history is to reconstruct the past as objective as possible and guide our direction of behaviors. With the help of historians, we are able to know how our ancestors lived and how the progresses evolved. At the same time, through the research of the past, many rules of nature and social development can be found. Those rules are very beneficial to us. We can avoid some mistakes which our ancestors encountered and based on the experiences we can make more progresses. On the contrary, story-telling is a creative art. It aims at improving the lever of one’s imagination and relaxing one’s mind. Although, some times many storytellers want to instruct children to act morally and legally by describing a story, they always bring their subjective ideas to emphasize the instructive effect of the story.(对比的手法用的挺好)
On the other hand, the tools which historians and storytellers depend on are different too. Historians always try their best to find convincing and scientific measurements to illustrate what they want to substantiate. Due to the progress of science and technology, more and more scientific methods and modern instruments are used by historians in their work. In many aspects, to illustrate some obfuscated issues historians must take advantage of some chemical, biological methods. For example, isotope 12 of carbon is used to determine the age of artifacts; with the technology of DNA identification. Some animal fossils can be classified; with the computer technology’s help, historians can put the large demographic statistic into computer and run a simulation based on this data. (排比句式用的黑非常恰当)Because those methods have been proven scientific, the result of interpretation of the past will be reasonable. Therefore, historians are able to tell the truth. However, when telling a story, the only tool used by storytellers is their imagination. Usually, the more imaginative the storyteller is, the more vivid the story is. Therefore, it may take months even years to interpret substantial evidence for historians, while it only takes minutes to fabricate a story for storytellers.
Admittedly, due to the loss of some records from time to time, Historians have to speculate and reconstruct the history through more or less their mind, in this case, historians seem to be “storytellers”. But what they think must base on their wide knowledge, logical induction and scientific preciseness. As time goes, many related proofs may be found and the case can be substantiated further by later historians.
All in all, historians contribute a lot to our human beings. Through the study of history we can learn much knowledge about our culture and so on. Without a fair mind a historian is likely to be a storyteller and what he presents may confuse us. Without storytellers, we just lose some interesting stories to relax ourselves, but without historians, we will lose ourselves and can not find the direction of progress. Understanding the past exactly can make our future better.
写的很好，我都不知道有什么地方要改了，值得学习