Sources

Historical Sources

Copy out the following information in your exercise books

• A source is something that has been created and can be used to gather information about the past.

• There are many different types of sources which are categorised into two areas:

1. PRIMARY source. These are sources that existed or created during the time period of study (e.g. a letter, a photo)

2. SECONDARY source. These are interpretations of a time period created after the time of study. They attempt to reconstruct the past (e.g. textbooks, films)

Read through the following information below and then complete the questions that follow

Sources are what historians call the evidence of the past. There are many different kinds of sources that an historian looks at to discover the people and events in history. Anything that can help you learn about the past is a source. Some examples include:

Newspapers

Photographs

Coins

Skeletons

Shipwrecks

Statues

Buildings

Pottery

Weapons

Witness accounts

Diary entries

Books

Mummies

Jewellery

Historians classify their sources into two groups – Primary Sources and Secondary Sources.

A primary source is one which was created during the time period you are studying, or by someone who was present at the time. This could be an Ancient Egyptian statue, a photograph of a World War One soldier, an Aboriginal cave painting, or a diary entry of someone who survived the sinking of the Titanic.

A secondary source is one which was created after the time period you are studying. Examples include a school textbook, Wikipedia articles, a documentary film using re- enactments.

Primary sources are useful because they contain first-hand information about history, although we must be careful because sometimes witnesses from the past are unreliable.

Secondary sources are useful because they usually come from someone who has investigated many primary sources and are giving us some conclusions about what may have occurred. Again we must be careful because some secondary sources may be biased.

TASK 1: Comprehension

Answer the following questions using the information above:

1. List are five examples of sources

2. Why are primary and secondary sources useful?

3. Why must historians be careful when using either primary or secondary sources?

Analysing A Source

Read through the following information and then complete the questions that follow

• Historians' sources help them reveal the past. By identifying the main features of sources, they can work out the strengths and weaknesses of each source

• Historians 'read between the lines' when examining a source. They:

detect information that is not obvious just by looking

find out if a source is complete or incomplete

make judgements about how they can use sources

• Historians also need to know the origin of a source. This means knowing:

when it came into existence

where it came from

who produced it

• When historians search for the ‘between-the-lines’ meaning of a source, this means they are thinking about the creator’s motive and purpose and the context in which the creator produced the source:

The motive of a source is the feelings, experiences, attitudes, values and obligations that may have influenced the person who created the source.

The purpose of a source is what the creator of a source hoped would happen as a result of producing the source — what the creator intended it to achieve. The source creator may have been trying to inform people about something or trying to convince his or her audience to take certain action or to agree or disagree with a particular viewpoint.

The context of a source is the location and circumstances in which someone created the source and the facts surrounding its creation. Knowing these things helps you to judge the significance or importance of a source.

TASK 3: Comprehension

Answer the following questions based off of the information above

1. What is meant by the origin of a source?

2. What are historians looking for when they ‘read between the lines’?

3. What is the difference between the motive and the purpose of a source’s creator?

4. Explain what is meant by the context of a source.