Analyzing DocumentsAnalyzing Documents

A document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS:

Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news footage, autobiographies, official records 

CREATIVE WORKS: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art 

RELICS OR ARTIFACTS:

Pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings

A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources.

These sources are one or more steps removed from the event.

Publications:

Textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias 

People living in the past left clues behind about their lives.

These clues include primary and secondary sources called the historical record.

The historical record is hugeMany events were never documented or

sources have been lost or destroyed

How can the historical record be huge and limited?

MINDWALK

Time and Place Rule The closer in time and place a source and its creator were to an event in the past, the better the source will be.

Bias RuleEvery source is biased in some way.Documents only tell us what the

creator of the document thought happened, or wants us to think happened.

Published DocumentsBooksMagazinesNewspapersGov. docsAdvertisementsMapsPamphletsPostersLawsCourt Decisions

Bias?

Unpublished Documents

LettersDiariesJournalsWillsDeedsFamily BiblesBusiness

records, ledgers, customer info.

Bias?

Oral Histories &Oral Traditions

Spoken words passed on from generation to generation

InterviewsBias?

Visual Documents and

ArtifactsPhotographsPaintingsFilmsOther artwork

Bias?