The word that throws the evidence away

There is one sentence that appears in more GCSE History answers than any other, and it is the most expensive thing a student can write. ⚠️ "THIS SOURCE IS BIASED, SO IT IS UNRELIABLE." It sounds careful. It sounds like the kind of thing a historian would say. ⚠️ AND IT ENDS THE ANSWER, BECAUSE ONCE YOU HAVE DISCARDED THE SOURCE YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO WRITE ABOUT. Here is what a historian does instead, and it is almost the opposite. ⭐⭐ BIAS IS NOT A DEFECT IN A SOURCE. IT IS EVIDENCE ABOUT THE PERSON WHO MADE IT. Think about what a one-sided source actually proves. It proves somebody wanted you to believe something. It proves what they thought would work on you. It proves what they judged safe to say out loud, and to whom. ⭐ NONE OF THAT IS AVAILABLE FROM A SOURCE THAT TELLS THE PLAIN TRUTH, BECAUSE A PLAIN TRUTH TELLS YOU NOTHING ABOUT THE TELLER. ⚠️ SO A SOURCE IS NEVER RELIABLE OR UNRELIABLE IN ITSELF. IT IS ONLY EVER RELIABLE FOR A PARTICULAR QUESTION. A government poster urging people to save fuel is close to worthless if your question is how much fuel people actually used. ⭐ AND IT IS EXCELLENT IF YOUR QUESTION IS WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WAS WORRIED ABOUT, OR WHICH ARGUMENTS IT THOUGHT WOULD PERSUADE PEOPLE. ⭐⭐ WHICH IS THE WHOLE IDEA OF THIS TOPIC IN ONE LINE: THE THING THAT MAKES A SOURCE UNRELIABLE FOR ONE QUESTION IS VERY OFTEN EXACTLY WHAT MAKES IT VALUABLE FOR ANOTHER. And that turns the three provenance words from labels into tools. ⭐ WHO MADE IT, WHY, AND WHO WAS MEANT TO SEE IT ARE NOT THREE THINGS TO RECITE. They are the three things that let you PREDICT what a source will distort, and in which direction, before you have read a word of it. ⚠️ ONE NOTE BEFORE YOU GO ON, BECAUSE HONESTY MATTERS MORE IN THIS SUBJECT THAN IN ANY OTHER. THE TWO SOURCES YOU WILL MEET LATER IN THIS MODULE WERE WRITTEN FOR IT. They are not real documents, no real person wrote them, and they are labelled as invented wherever they appear. ⭐ THEY EXIST TO SHOW YOU THE MOVE. THE MOVE IS WHAT YOU TAKE INTO THE EXAM, AND IT WORKS ON REAL SOURCES YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN.

Discarding it, or using it

The same one-sided source, handled two ways, and the three questions that decide which you are doing.

Tap what gives the writer away

From a notice posted at a factory gate, written for this module and not a real document: "The owners, having always placed the comfort of their workpeople first, have decided of their own free will to shorten the working day. No request was made to them. They ask only that the men remember who granted it." Tap the TWO phrases that reveal most about why the notice was written.

of their own free will
remember who granted it
shorten the working day
The owners

What a poster is good evidence for

A wartime government poster urges people to use less fuel and says the country is united in doing so. A student writes that it is propaganda and therefore unreliable. What has that answer given away?

The chance to use it. The poster is weak evidence for how much fuel people actually used, and strong evidence for what the government was worried about and which arguments it believed would work
Nothing much: propaganda genuinely is unreliable, so setting it aside is correct
That they should have checked whether the country really was united
That they should have described the poster's tone and imagery in more detail

Five terms this objective runs on

Five terms, each defined by what it is. What each one lets you do with a source is the work of the steps that follow.

Match each source to what it is good evidence for

A private diary nobody was meant to read
A speech made to a crowd of supporters
A company ledger recording wages paid
A letter written to a court to ask for mercy
A photograph taken for a magazine feature

What one person actually believed at the time, though only about what they chose to write down
Which arguments the speaker expected to be popular with people already on their side
Figures the writer had no motive to falsify, because the record was kept for their own use
What the writer believed the people judging them would find persuasive
Which scenes were thought worth showing to readers, and how they were arranged to be seen

Two that follow from bias being evidence

Select the TWO statements that follow from a source never being reliable or unreliable in itself.

Two sources that disagree are something to explain rather than a problem to solve by choosing one
Knowing who made a source, why, and for whom lets you predict what it will distort before reading its content
A private source is more reliable than a public one, because the writer had no reason to perform
A source written at the time is always better evidence than one written later

A method you can run on any source

You may already have met the idea that a source is useful FOR a named enquiry rather than useful in general. ⚠️ THIS IS WHAT TO DO ONCE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THAT, AND IT IS THE SAME FIVE MOVES EVERY TIME. READ THE ATTRIBUTION BEFORE THE SOURCE. The line above or below it tells you who, why and for whom. ⭐ STUDENTS SKIP IT AND THEN SPEND THE ANSWER GUESSING AT THINGS THEY WERE TOLD. PREDICT THE DISTORTION. From provenance alone, say what this source is likely to exaggerate, minimise or leave out, and in which direction. READ IT AND CHECK YOUR PREDICTION. Where it matches, you have an argument. Where it does NOT match, you have something more interesting: a source behaving unexpectedly, which is always worth a sentence. ⭐ NAME A QUESTION IT ANSWERS WELL. Not what it is unreliable for, but what its one-sidedness makes it good at. SAY WHAT IT CANNOT TELL YOU, AND WHAT WOULD FILL THE GAP. A source with a different origin, not simply another source saying the same thing. ⚠️ ONE DISTINCTION TO KEEP STRAIGHT, AND THEN LEAVE ALONE. Material made at the time is a source. An account written later, by somebody looking back, is an interpretation, and it is assessed differently and elsewhere in your course. Do not treat a historian's later argument as though it were a witness. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS ON THIS OBJECTIVE. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS THE VERDICT WITH NO QUESTION ATTACHED. "Reliable" and "unreliable" mean nothing until you say reliable for what. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS RETELLING THE SOURCE. Summarising its content is not using it, and a marker can already read it. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS TREATING CORROBORATION AS AGREEMENT. Two sources that repeat each other because one copied the other, or because both came from the same office, have not corroborated anything. ⭐ SUPPORT ONLY COUNTS WHEN IT COMES FROM SOMEWHERE INDEPENDENT.

One man, two accounts, no lie

Both of the following were written for this module. Neither is a real document and no real person wrote them. They are built so that the two sources share an author and differ only in who was meant to read them, which is the cleanest way to see the method work. THE FIRST: a notice posted at the gate of a mill, for the workforce to read. "The owners, having always placed the comfort of their workpeople first, have decided of their own free will to shorten the working day. No request was made to them. They ask only that the men remember who granted it." THE SECOND: a private letter from the same owner to his business partner. "We must cut the hours. The orders are not there and I will not keep men standing idle at full wages. Better we announce it ourselves, and gain what credit we can, than wait until the men demand it and gain none." ⚠️ THE TEMPTING CONCLUSION IS THAT THE FIRST IS A LIE AND THE SECOND IS THE TRUTH. THAT IS THE WRONG READING, AND IT THROWS AWAY THE MORE INTERESTING SOURCE. Look at what each is good for, and notice they are good for different things. ⭐ THE PRIVATE LETTER IS STRONG EVIDENCE FOR WHY THE HOURS WERE CUT. The writer had no reason to perform for his partner and every reason to be plain about the business position. If your question is what caused the decision, this is the better source by a distance. ⭐⭐ BUT THE NOTICE IS THE BETTER SOURCE FOR SOMETHING THE LETTER CANNOT TOUCH: WHAT THE OWNER THOUGHT WOULD WORK ON HIS WORKFORCE. He expected gratitude to be worth having. He expected the men to believe, or at least to accept, that the change was a gift. And he was careful to say that nobody had asked, which tells you he thought a demand might be coming. ⭐ THAT LAST DETAIL IS THE MOST VALUABLE THING IN EITHER DOCUMENT, AND IT IS ONLY IN THE ONE-SIDED ONE. The letter confirms it: he says outright that he wants to move before the men do. So the two together do something neither does alone. The letter tells you the reason; the notice tells you what the relationship between owner and workforce was like, because it shows you what the owner believed he had to manage. ⚠️ AND NOTICE WHAT THIS PAIR IS NOT. IT IS NOT ONE HONEST DOCUMENT AND ONE DISHONEST ONE. ⭐ IT IS ONE MAN ADDRESSING TWO AUDIENCES, AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO IS ITSELF THE EVIDENCE.

Order the five moves on any source

Put these five moves into the order that gets the most out of a source, ending with what it cannot do.

Read the attribution: who made it, why, and for whom
Predict what it will exaggerate, minimise or leave out
Read the source and check the prediction against what it actually says
Name a question this source answers well because of its one-sidedness
Say what it cannot tell you, and what kind of source would fill that gap

Build the sentence that uses the bias

This is the sentence that turns a discarded source into a used one. Assemble it.

The source-work run

Five questions on using a source rather than discarding it. Three lives.

Complete the source-work facts

Material produced at the time of the events it concerns is a _____. Where a source came from, including who made it and for whom, is its _____. How much help a source gives with one particular enquiry is its _____. Support for a claim from a separate source with a different origin is _____.

contemporary source provenance utility corroboration audience an interpretation accuracy context

Three answers to rescue

Three student answers about sources. In each case the mark is in what was done with the source, not in whether the observation was correct.

An answer correctly identifies that a speech was made to the speaker's own supporters, then concludes that it is therefore unreliable and moves on. What has it lost?
Two sources give different accounts of the same event. A student decides which one is more trustworthy and builds the answer on that one alone. How would you improve it?
An answer supports a claim by noting that two documents say the same thing. Both were produced by the same government department. What should be said?

Use a one-sided source properly

Choose a source from a topic you have studied that is clearly one-sided. Explain what it is poor evidence for, what it is strong evidence for, and how you know.

Begin with the provenance: who made it, why, and who was meant to see it
Predict from that alone what the source is likely to exaggerate, minimise or leave out
Name a question this source answers badly, and explain why its origin makes it weak there
Name a question it answers well precisely because of its one-sidedness, and explain why
Say what the source cannot tell you, and what kind of source with a different origin would fill that gap
Avoid concluding that the source is simply unreliable, and avoid retelling what it says

Working with Historical Sources

Use it, the way the marks are given

What you'll cover