Here’s an unusual Reading Wales Month contribution. I’m including it in celebration of the academic institutions in Wales and the contributions they have made to society. I’m an alumnus of Aberystwyth University. When I was there, Aber was a college of the federal University of Wales, along with Bangor, Cardiff, St David’s and Swansea. Aimee Grant is a post doctoral researcher at Swansea University and has written a brilliant guide to how to analyse information contained in documents. She comes at the subject from a social science angle, but what she describes is relevant to all of us in a world of overwhelming information.

The foreword to Doing Excellent Social Research with Documents makes the point that we are creating and consuming written content and images at an increasing rate, across a range of sources that have expanded to include digital sources like social media. The need for skills in critically reading these sources is becoming increasingly important so that we can all “read between the lines” and understand what lies behind these documents, which are considered by Grant “not simply as topics of study but for what they can tell us about the richness of the lives of individuals in a variety of social situations.”

As someone working with documents (I’m an archivist) with a background in Economic and Social History (my first degree that still informs my professional practice), this introduction had me excited for what was to follow. You might not feel as excited as I did, but hear me out.

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