Understanding how to analyse Sources (1 Viewer)

[rusty91]

Hey Modern Historians,

I have a curious question to ask all those Modern Historians today,

I am just wondering what is the difference in finding the reliability and usefulness of a source such as using propaganda (Posters, speechs, leaflet etc), statistics, secondary sources (extracts, Historians P.O.V, etc).

Please add your opinions Historians as this may be helpful in removing the confusion between the words Reliabilty and Usefulness.

Cheers! T.C Modern Historians

 

[Kujah]

Reliability
Can the source be trusted? Is it biased, and does the perspective distort the actual information? Secondary sources such as memoirs written by high-ranking officials such as Haig, Ludendorff, Lloyd George etc may be exaggerated and distorted for accountability. They may want to justify some of the decisions they made in the war, or shift the blame to others.

Usefulness
How valuable is the information for the historians? In what areas are they of use? Do they depict something about the home front or the stalemate? DO they show us useful information on the nature of trench warfare or turning points?

Another thing on usefulness - On what areas are they not useful about? If you get an extended response that asks you to analyse a source's usefulness on trench warfare, and they only convey, for instance, trench conditions ONLY, it can be said that the source isn't useful in showing us information on other areas of trench warfare, like the technology used, the tactics used, the diseases that were present, the type of trenches used etc.

All sources are useful. It's just that caution and collaboration with other sources are needed to make sure we can overcome the reliability issues of the source that we scrutinise.

Hope that helps.

 

[allyoop]

What he^ said

 

[wendus]

reliability: talk about bias, persective in particular, motive of author, etc.
usefulness: refer to question you're asked