Help with History Source Questions

Poica

What constants do you mean?

I mean source content of which the historian's subjectivity doesn't come into play. For example, date, background and other 'key concepts'.

Reply 21

gyyy2807

14

Read the source(s), make notes on them as you read for similarities and differences. Similarity strengthens a particular point of view.
Think about stuff that the source has left out. Such omissions can be used to weaken a source. If a source is a historian's opinion and there are omissions or contradict with your facts, then use your facts to weaken that source.

On answering the question, it really depends on what type of question it is. E.g. if it is a question about causes or consequences, then you might the causes/consequences offered in the sources and talk about them before coming to a judgement about which is the most important cause/consequence.

Reply 22

Poica

14

necessarily benevolent

I mean source content of which the historian's subjectivity doesn't come into play. For example, date, background and other 'key concepts'.

Apart from dates and a very few other key concepts, I'd say subjectivity effects everything. So okay, I suppose I see your point. A list documenting a king's marriages that is verifiable with other contemporary documents is less likely to have subjectivity involved than the king's diary saying what he thinks of this.

However, I would add that sources like this are few and far between...

Reply 23

necessarily benevolent

14

Poica

Apart from dates and a very few other key concepts, I'd say subjectivity effects everything. So okay, I suppose I see your point. A list documenting a king's marriages that is verifiable with other contemporary documents is less likely to have subjectivity involved than the king's diary saying what he thinks of this.

However, I would add that sources like this are few and far between...

Yes, but just because the numbers may not be there doesn't necessarily mean we can completely disregard a 'scale of reliability'. In fact, the numbers are a sum of its parts.

Reply 24

Poica

14

necessarily benevolent

Yes, but just because the numbers may not be there doesn't necessarily mean we can completely disregard a 'scale of reliability'. In fact, the numbers are a sum of its parts.

Mmmm...maybe. I probably would never go near comparing "reliability" based on how many verifiable facts we can identify in a source, because even then the selection of which facts we view as verifiable is subjective.

In a way I hate post-modernism in History...

Help with History Source Questions

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