Evaluating SourcesIB Style

SOCIAL 20IB
OPVL NOTES
Origins: What are we looking at?

Question 1: What type of source is this?

Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary Source?
Fiction or Non-Fiction
What form? (Letter, diary, statistical almanac,
memoir, journal article, novel, oral history,
government document, or something else?)
Origins: What are we looking at?

Question 2: Who produced this source?

Who is/are the author(s)?
What is their relevant background?
Are they associated with a particular methodology, school of
historiography, political ideology, etc.?
Are they tied to a particular university, program or think tank that
would influence or indicate their perspective?
What else have they published?
What qualifications do they have for knowing the
information they give?
Is the author an academic historian, sociologist, economist, etc.
Is the author an eye witness or someone who would have privileged
knowledge?
Origins: What are we looking at?

Question 3: How did the source come to us?

When was it created?
What was the historical context in which it was created?
Has it been edited or translated by someone else? If so, what
is their background?
For primary sources, where was it found?
Has it gone through different editions or taken different
forms over the years?
How widely has the source been distributed? If possible, get a
sense for how many copies have been sold.
Has the source or author won any prizes or special
recognition?
Purpose: Why was it written?

As far as we can tell, what was the authors original

motivation for creating this source?
Was it supposed to be informational, artistic, for
entertainment, or something else?
Was it intended to influence people? Was it written
for private use?
For what audience(s), if any, was the source originally
produced? Popular? Academic? Specialists?
Has the source been used in ways that the author
might not have intended? If so, explain.
Values: How is this source useful to historians in general, and to
your project in particular?

Dont forget the obvious

Primary sources were usually written in the first-person
by an eye witness or someone else with privileged
knowledge about the subject. They were actually there
and observed something during the period in question.
Secondary sources rely on multiple primary sources,
which means they can see the big picture. They also
have the benefit of hindsight.
Types of sources have certain values. Ex. Film/video
capture moments in history with vivid detail and is a
stimulating piece of evidence.
Limitations: How and to what degree is the usefulness of this source
limited?

Dont forget the obvious (again)

Primary sources usually represent only one persons point of view.
They could not have seen or known everything. They didnt know
how things would turn out.
Secondary sources have to rely on the observations made in primary
sources. No matter how knowledgeable the author might be, they
were not actually there. The meaning of language changes over time
and is culturally bound (even in the present). How do we know the
authors perception matches the original intent of the primary
sources they rely on?
Subjective emotionally laden?
Did the author have a reason to knowingly misrepresent the facts?
Political bias?
Proximity to event Time and physical