HISTORICAL SOURCES

Types of Sources: Primary and Secondary

Historians use a variety of sources to obtain information about the past. In their research, historians use both primary and secondarysources.

Primary sources are actual records that have survived from the past.They are first-hand accounts created at the time of the event by someone who was directly or indirectly involved. Diaries, letters, photographs, painting, are examples of primary sources.

Secondary sources are accounts of the past created by someone well after the event occurred. A textbook is a secondary source as it was written by someone long after the event took place. Textbooks, however, often include primary sources such as an excerpt from a letter or painting.

The information obtained from primary or secondary sources by historians is referred to as historical evidence.

Historical Record

People living in the past left clues about their lives and these clues include both primary and secondary sources such as books, government reports, letters, diaries, maps, photographs, artifacts, etc. Historians refer to these clues as the historical record.

The historical record contains billions of pieces of evidence about the past. But the historical record provides only a glimpse of the past as most of what happened in the past was never recorded or documented or have been lost or destroyed.

However, historical sources were created and saved by people interested in recording history. These sources or documents of the past are what historians use to write history.

Types of Primary Sources – Written, Visual, Oral

When analyzing primary sources, historians consider the type of primary source being examined. Different primary sources were created for different reasons. Knowing the different types of primary sources helps to evaluate the reliability of primary sources.

There are three basic types of sources - written, visual and oral.

Written Documents

Written documents include magazines, newspapers, letters, diaries and journals and are either published or unpublished documents.

Published documents were created for the public to read, large audiences and distributed widely. They include books, magazines, newspapers, government reports, literature (short stories, poems, etc.), advertisements, maps, pamphlets, posters, laws and court decisions.

Just because it was published does not make it truthful, accurate, or reliable. Every document has a creator and every creator has a point of view and bias (one view is favoured). However, even biased sources provide important information about the past.

Unpublished documents were not intended to be read by the public. These include personal letters, diaries, journals, wills, deeds, family records, correspondence, minutes of meeting, financial statements, and government records (taxes, police reports, voter lists, etc.).

Visual Documents

Visual documents include photographs, films, paintings, and other types of artwork. Since 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, work and play.

As with other primary sources, visual documents have a creator (painter, photographer, filmmaker, etc.) with a point of view and bias.

Oral History

Historians and others find out about the lives of people through spoken stories. Oral histories provide important historical evidence about people who have been excluded or ignored (minority groups) from mainstream publications or did not leave behind written primary sources. Interviews of community elders and witnesses to historical events provide information about the past.

Analyzing Sources

Primary and secondary sources are created for different purposes by its author or creator and have a point of view and bias. Some sources are more reliable than others but every source is biased to some extent. As a result, historians read sources skeptically and critically. They also cross-check, compare and findcorroborating evidence with other sources. Historians follow a few basic rules to help them analyze a source and determine its reliability.

Corroboration

To determine whether source has presented biased information or whether the facts are accurate, compare it with other sources and find information that confirms orcorroborates it. Corroborationmeans information from other sources that confirms or support the facts presented by the author/creator in a primary or secondary source.

The more sources that corroborate the information provided by the author/creator the more reliable it will be considered.

Bias

Bias means onlyone point of view is favoured or presentedand therefor it is not objective and complete. People have different points of views that affect their observations of events. Ideas, attitudes, values, religion, race, gender, class are some of the factors that contribute to bias. As a result, people have different interpretations of the same event.

  • Author/Creator

It is important to evaluate the objectivity of the author or creator of the source.

This requires some knowledge of the author or creator. Sometimes bias is obvious because of who the author or creator is and the circumstances.

  • Explicit Bias/Direct

Bias can be explicit (direct). The author/creator sometimes makes their bias clear and obvious by directly stating it.

“Adolf Hitler was evil incarnate and individually responsible for World War II”.

The writer declares the point of view that Hitler was evil and without his role World War II would not have happened.

  • Implicit Bias/Indirect

Bias can be implicit (indirect). The author/creator does not directly state their bias but rather implies it.

“Many Nazi war criminals escaped, and some were eventually captured and brought to trial. Others managed to hide from their pasts and never had to answer for their actions.”

Implicit in this statement is the condemnation of those who went unpunished for war crimes.

  • Emotionally charged words or visuals

Emotionally charged words and phrases, photographs, or videos can be used to present information favourably/positively or unfavourably/negatively. Exaggeration ad over-generalizations reflect bias in written material such as “always”, “never”, and “none”. Images can be used to influence an audience. Music used in videos affects the tone and mood and thus influence the viewer to a particular point of view.

“Adolf Hitler was evil incarnate and individually responsible for World War II”.

“The Americans always interferein the affairs of other countries for their own self interests.”

  • Facts versus opinion

Facts are verifiable pieces of information, whereas opinions are interpretations which may or may not be based on facts.

Usefulness

In many cases the source is both reliable and unreliable. It may be reliable because it is accurate and can be corroborated by other sources but also not reliable because it is strongly biased. However, all sources regardless of bias or inaccuracies are useful to some extent in providing some information about the event.

Sources: Library of Congress Learning Page – The Historians Sources, Twentieth Century Viewpoints