DBQ Seminar: Point of View and Additional Documents
Point of View
One way to assess a source’s point of view is to consider whether that source may be exhibiting bias. But in your essay try to avoid using the word bias; instead, question the source’s truthfulness, accuracy, credibility or veracity (which is simply the quality of being truthful, honest or accurate). And don’t merely claim that a source is biased because he’s a man … or because she’s Spanish … or because he’s a wealthy aristocrat … and leave it at that. You have to go beyond that and explain why the source may have had this bias.
Wrong: He’s French, so he’s probably not telling the truth.
Right: The account of the civil order in Syria (D5) during the 1920s should be viewed with great skepticism because the source is a French diplomat, and the French had a clear interest in downplaying the level of protests by local Syrians angry at French occupation of the region under the mandate of the League of Nations following World War I.
Wrong: Smith’s account (D2) is biased because he was a slave owner.
Right: The veracity of Smith’s account (D2) of the seemingly reasonable working conditions on Caribbean sugar plantations can be questioned because he owned slaves working on those very plantations. Had he described the brutality of the conditions more truthfully, it would have undermined his own morality as a slave owner ultimately responsible for those brutal conditions.
Also keep in mind that sources may be telling a version of the truth that’s notably honest, credible or accurate. You can pick up on reasons why this might be the case and use them to explain why a source’s account should be considered persuasive or credible.
Example: The diplomat’s account of these events appears quite credible because it clearly contradicts his own emperor’s claims. He would not have risked his career or even personal safety by angering the emperor if he did not believe strongly in his own story.
Additional Documents
Recall that you must explain the need for additional documents. One of the most straightforward ways of coming up with additional documents is to examine closely the documents provided to you in the DBQ, and look for claims made by a source that may or may not be entirely truthful, accurate or credible. Then speculate in your mind about what other kinds of documents might exist surrounding that claim, and then call for them. To explain the need for these documents, you simply have to point out that they will provide a way to better assess the truthfulness, accuracy, credibility or veracity of the claim being made by the source of the document in your DBQ.
Wrong: It would be helpful to have records of Chinese marriages and divorces during the 8th and 9th centuries.
Right: Records of Chinese marriages and divorces during the 8th and 9th centuries could be used to assess the veracity of Emperor Wu’s claim (D6) that Buddhism’s appeal had become so extensive that it “severs man and wife with its monastic decrees.”
Document 1
Document 2
Historical background: Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne in March 1917 as the three-centuries-old Romanov dynasty came to a close and Russia, reeling from the ravages of World War I, spiraled into revolution. The following year, he and his entire family were executed.
Document 2
Document 3
Document 4