• What are three important things that the producer of the source sought to communicate?
Then, take your investigation to a deeper level by asking more substantive, probing questions:http://www.51lunwen.org/liuxuelunwen/
>Why do you think this document was written? What evidence in the document
helps you know why it was written? Quote from the document.
>Who was the intended audience? Was it a personal diary intended to be kept
private? Was the document, image or object prepared for public scrutiny
or use?
>What questions does this source raise for you?
>Is it a reliable source? Why or why not? Did the recorder wish to inform or
persuade others? Did the recorder have reasons to be honest or dishonest?
{see section below on reliability and bias}
>What do we not know about this source?
>What other sources might help answer our questions about this one? What kinds
of sources would you like to have (in a perfect world) to compare with this
one? Are there other sources in existence like this one that can be used for
comparison?
>What other information do we have about this document? What else do we need to
know in order to understand the evidence in this source?
Identifying Reliability & Bias : Some primary sources may be judged more reliable than others, but every source is biased in some way. Every document has a creator, and every creator has a point of view, blind spots, and biases. A source’s creator had opinions or interests that probably influenced how and what was recorded. As a result, historians read sources skeptically and critically. They also cross-check sources against other evidence and sources.
To judge the quality of a primary source’s reliability, historians use what some call the time and place rule. This rule says that the closer in time and place a source and its creator were to an event in the past, the better the source will be. Based on the time and place rule, better primary sources (starting with the most reliable) might include:
• Direct traces of the event;
• Accounts of the event, created at the time it occurred, by firsthand observers, witnesses, and participants;
• Accounts of the event, created after the event occurred, by firsthand observers, witnesses, and participants;
• Accounts of the event, created after the event occurred, by people who did not participate or witness the event, but who used interviews or evidence from the time of the event.
The historians’ second rule to check reliability is the bias rule. It acknowledges that every source is biased in some way and the total objectivity is an epistemological impossibility. Documents tell us only what the creator of the document thought happened, or perhaps only what the creator wants us to think happened. As a result, historians follow the following guidelines when they review evidence from the past for built in bias:
• Every piece of evidence and every source must be read or viewed skeptically and critically.
• No piece of evidence should be taken at face value. The creator’s point of view must be considered.
• Each piece of evidence and source must be cross-checked and compared with related sources and pieces of evidence.
A Note on Images, Visual Documents & Visual Records: Visual documents include photographs, films, paintings, and other types of artwork. Because visual documents capture moments in time, they can provide evidence of changes over time. Visual documents include evidence about a culture at specific moments in history: its customs, preferences, styles, special occasions, work, and play. Like other primary source documents, a v
