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Unpublished Documents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?