How to Analyse Sources (1 Viewer)

braindrainedAsh

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There are a lot of questions posted on this forum about how to analyze sources. I thought I would create this one-stop thread where everyone can share their advice on how to best analyze sources.

Please reply to this thread with your tips and tricks for analyzing sources.

Here are some of my tips:

There are three main things that you are asked to assess in the HSC when it comes to the sources in the WW1 section of the exam.

1. Usefulness- often the question specifies the type of purpose the source may be used for e.g. a historian is researching life in the trenches.... a source about life on the home front will not be very useful for this purpose. Also, usefulness depends on the content of the source. What does it tell you about WW1? Usefulness is also closely related to reliability and perspective.... the source may not be very useful if it is propaganda, or unreliable. A source may be useful in one way, e.g. in showing the uniforms soldiers had to wear, but not useful in another way e.g. it doesn't show the conditions in the trenches.

2. Perspective- perspective is very important. The perspective of an officer will be different to the perspective of a soldier, or a mother on the home front, or a government official. A German perspective will be different to a British perspective... the perspective of someone who was there at the time as opposed to someone who wasn't will be different. These differing perspective will shape the opinions and ideas reflected in the source.

3. Reliability- is the source propaganda? Is it a reliable account of what actually happened? Was the person who composed the source actually there or did they get their information from secondary sources? Was it written at the time of the event, or 20 years later? Did the composer have a certain motive that could have impacted upon the source reliability? Also, consider the audience.... what impact does the composer want the source to have on the audience? Do they want mums and dads to not worry about their soldier sons? Do they want people to vote a certain way in an election?

There is no magic formula to writing responses to these questions but there are a few key things that you can think about.

Some particular types of sources raise questions of their own that can be considered.

Photographs- could the photograph be staged for publicity? Who is the photographer? Does the photo look realisitic?

Memoirs- time can change people's memories of events. Sometimes historical events can be romanticized in memoirs. Also, the person writing the memoir could want to see things from a certain perspective in order to justify their own actions in the past... people want to paint themselves as the hero, not the villain when they write a memoir.

Newspaper stories- could information have been censored (think d-notes, which stopped the publication of classified information)? Does it tell the whole story? What perspective does it provide?

Personal letters- could soldiers be hiding the whole truth because they don't want to upset relatives or friends at home? Does it appear to be an honest account?

Diaries- these are often quite reliable if they are kept for personal reference only.

Extracts from textbooks- what sources has the author used for their information?



These are just a few things you can consider, feel free to post with stuff I have neglected to write about, and with your own tactics/tips/tricks about source analysis.
 

jawjayo

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7 points to look at : origin, motive, content, audience, perspective and how these determine reliability and usefulness.
Equally, when analysing sources, a good idea for creating flow is to look at how the audience influences motive and thus shapes the content.
 

Meldrum

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I love how these posts on U&R come out after we've finished looking at sources until the yearlies...
 

jdrockefeller

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My teach taught our class TOMAC to help analysing sources.

As in,

T Type
O Origin
M Motive
A Audience
C Content

Arranging it into an acronym just helps to remember it.
 

paper cup

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braindrainedAsh said:
There are a lot of questions posted on this forum about how to analyze sources. I thought I would create this one-stop thread where everyone can share their advice on how to best analyze sources.

Please reply to this thread with your tips and tricks for analyzing sources.

Here are some of my tips:

There are three main things that you are asked to assess in the HSC when it comes to the sources in the WW1 section of the exam.

1. Usefulness- often the question specifies the type of purpose the source may be used for e.g. a historian is researching life in the trenches.... a source about life on the home front will not be very useful for this purpose. Also, usefulness depends on the content of the source. What does it tell you about WW1? Usefulness is also closely related to reliability and perspective.... the source may not be very useful if it is propaganda, or unreliable. A source may be useful in one way, e.g. in showing the uniforms soldiers had to wear, but not useful in another way e.g. it doesn't show the conditions in the trenches.

2. Perspective- perspective is very important. The perspective of an officer will be different to the perspective of a soldier, or a mother on the home front, or a government official. A German perspective will be different to a British perspective... the perspective of someone who was there at the time as opposed to someone who wasn't will be different. These differing perspective will shape the opinions and ideas reflected in the source.

3. Reliability- is the source propaganda? Is it a reliable account of what actually happened? Was the person who composed the source actually there or did they get their information from secondary sources? Was it written at the time of the event, or 20 years later? Did the composer have a certain motive that could have impacted upon the source reliability? Also, consider the audience.... what impact does the composer want the source to have on the audience? Do they want mums and dads to not worry about their soldier sons? Do they want people to vote a certain way in an election?

There is no magic formula to writing responses to these questions but there are a few key things that you can think about.

Some particular types of sources raise questions of their own that can be considered.

Photographs- could the photograph be staged for publicity? Who is the photographer? Does the photo look realisitic?

Memoirs- time can change people's memories of events. Sometimes historical events can be romanticized in memoirs. Also, the person writing the memoir could want to see things from a certain perspective in order to justify their own actions in the past... people want to paint themselves as the hero, not the villain when they write a memoir.

Newspaper stories- could information have been censored (think d-notes, which stopped the publication of classified information)? Does it tell the whole story? What perspective does it provide?

Personal letters- could soldiers be hiding the whole truth because they don't want to upset relatives or friends at home? Does it appear to be an honest account?

Diaries- these are often quite reliable if they are kept for personal reference only.

Extracts from textbooks- what sources has the author used for their information?



These are just a few things you can consider, feel free to post with stuff I have neglected to write about, and with your own tactics/tips/tricks about source analysis.
One thing to remember - propaganda is not always useless or unreliable - it tells us what the govt was telling its people at the time, and it's reliable in that respect.
 
T

Talent-ed

Guest
AATMETSTAATO

Another
Acronym
That
Means
Exactly
The
Same
Thing
As
All
The
Others
 

dimu2

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:) thanx 4 the help nubs.. heres mine :
COMBAT

Content
Origin
Motive
Bias
Audience
Tone
 

dimu2

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Help me out?

Well aright lets say we take something like "COMBAT" (content, origin, motive, bias, audience, tone).. if the question says 'assess the reliability of this source' for 4 marks or whatever do we go:
The content in this source is blah blah and makes it reliable because blah blah
The origin of this source is etc and makes it reliable as blah blah
The motive of this text, to blah blah, makes it reliable etc etc etc etc
Is this how we're meant to do it? Or how do we format out a question like this making sure we answer all of these abbreviated helpers? Especailly with such limited time restraints as well?
Please help
 
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In my 95 in MH opinion, you guys shouldn't be structuring your answers around those acronyms - they're useful to think about in the exam to get ideas from, but you need to really focus on the 'reliability, perspective and usefulness' part of the question. Use those words once or twice when talking about each source to show the markers that you're answering the question and not just analysing the source the way you want to.
 

fleepbasding

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Silver Persian said:
In my 95 in MH opinion, you guys shouldn't be structuring your answers around those acronyms - they're useful to think about in the exam to get ideas from, but you need to really focus on the 'reliability, perspective and usefulness' part of the question. Use those words once or twice when talking about each source to show the markers that you're answering the question and not just analysing the source the way you want to.
This is very sound advice which I lived by throughout my modern history core (and ended up with 94).

Acronyms are useful for remembering different aspects of a source which might have a bearing upon the reliability or usefulness of a source. But you can't just talk about "providence" (for example) in isolation but must link that VERY explicitly to reliability (and perspective probably).

The most useful study for the core is text-book reading and notetaking in order to get a thorough knowlege of all the dotpoints (the HSC exam core is ussually structured around 1 or 2 dotpoints), making sure you know atleast 3 "token facts" for each one. btw, token facts are just little stats or obscure dates- useing a few in your core answers will give the marker the impression that you have a terrific breadth of knowlege*. Beyond this, just practice, practice, PRACTICE!

*this applies mostly to question 2.
 

eastenders

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i am just terrible at sources...i did shocking in my first assessment yesterday. mh is too hard for me too many essays.
 

-pari-

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some tips:


what is it reliable for? what is it not reliable for?

how is the perspective influenced? - look at the person: military officer? general? politician?
look at the context of the time - during a war? oppressive period? post war?

what was the purpose intended by the composer of the source?

what can the source be used to show?
what is it NOT useful for?
 

Tammie

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eastenders said:
i am just terrible at sources...i did shocking in my first assessment yesterday. mh is too hard for me too many essays.
sources shouldnt be something that you hate or see as too hard.
just practice, same goes with essays. This may sound simplistic, but i couldnt write an essay at the beginning of year 11, and i ended up doing fairly well, although it took alot of effort. however, i'm now at uni and studying to be a history teacher:)

ask your teacher, or find some sources of your own and try to answer similar questions to the one given to you for your assessment. or even redo your assessment. stop and take time to consider the sources. the acronyms in these posts are useful to remember how to analyse a source.

if you want you can email me, with your assessment and answers, i'll be happy to give you a few pointers if i can.

dont give up! and keep positive, remember that if you make a mistake, and you know where you went wrong and why, your not going to do it again:)
 

I wanna be

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Sources are ALWAYS useful! Something my teacher has been drilling into our heads all year :uhhuh:. Never say that they are simply not useful. Say instead what they are useful in showing.

Even propaganda is useful in demonstrating how governments tried to influence people and encourage them to act and think in a certain way.
 

mzmiriam

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That is awesome!! Thanks heaps! This site is really helpful lol..

I have exams in 2 weeks an i havent studied! :bomb:
 

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