 For his history class, Deshaun has to write a research paper on the causes of World War II. He bases most of his argument on a single book. After reading the rough draft, his professor tells him that before he realized so much on this one book, he needs to look at other books and articles on the topic. As he does so, Deshaun realizes that most other historians actually disagree with the conclusions made by the author of the first book. He even finds some articles where other historians specifically point out the problems they see with the book he was using. In this situation, Deshaun is coming to understand the concept of scholarship as conversation. At first, he did not understand that the book he found was not the final word on the topic. But as he read the additional books and articles, he came to see that his book was part of an ongoing debate that historians have been having on the topic, and that it represented only one perspective. He was surprised to realize that historians do not always agree. Instead, for many topics, there is not one clear answer that everyone accepts. As he comes to understand the idea of the scholarly conversation, Deshaun realizes that he cannot determine the value of any particular information source until he understands the broader conversation that is taking place around that source.