Working with Sources and Interpretations

Working with sources and interpretations

History is built from evidence. A source is anything from the past that a historian can study, from a letter or a photograph to a coin or a building. An interpretation is a considered view of the past that someone has built from sources, such as the account in a textbook or a museum display. To use sources well you have to do more than read them. You weigh who made each one and why, how far it can be trusted, and how useful it is for the exact question you are asking. To use interpretations well you have to explain how and why views of the same past can differ, and then judge them fairly rather than picking the one you like. This module teaches those skills with clear, everyday examples, so that you can apply the same thinking to any period you study.

Source and interpretation words

Learn these terms before the source questions are matched up. They name the tools you use to weigh evidence.

Match each provenance question to what it reveals

A source against an interpretation

These two are easy to mix up, yet they are different, and a good answer keeps them apart.

Can a biased source still be useful?

A diary is clearly one-sided and full of strong opinion. For a historian studying what people at the time believed, this diary is...

• still useful, because it shows what one person genuinely thought
• useless, because it is biased
• a fully reliable record of the events themselves
• an interpretation rather than a source

Usefulness depends on the question

Usefulness is never fixed. The same source can be very useful for one enquiry and almost useless for another, so always ask what the source is being used for before you judge it. A shop advertisement may be poor evidence of what a town was really like, yet excellent evidence of what shopkeepers wanted people to want. Even a source that stretches the truth is useful, because it shows what someone hoped others would believe. So when you are asked how useful a source is, do not judge it in the air. Tie your answer to the exact question being asked, use what the source says and who made it together, and say what the source is good for and what it is not.

Pick what changes how useful a source is

Select every thing that can genuinely change how useful a source is to a historian.

• Who made it and why it was made
• The exact question being asked of it
• What the source actually says
• The colour of the folder it is kept in
• Whether the historian enjoys the topic

Order the steps to evaluate a source

Put the steps of judging a source into a sensible order.

• Read the source and work out what it says
• Check who made it, when and why
• Weigh how far it can be trusted
• Compare it against other sources
• Reach a judgement for the question asked

Complete the source-work facts

The story of who made a source and why is its _____. A source that agrees with others when you _____ it can be trusted more. Two historians can form a different _____ of one past. What a source stays quiet about, its _____, can matter as much as its words.

Tap the parts that are interpretation

Read this short passage about an old wall. Tap the TWO statements that are interpretations rather than plain facts.

• the wall was built from stone
• the wall stood three metres tall
• the wall was the finest building of its age
• the wall shows its makers were ruled by fear

Two photographs of one garden

Two people photograph the same garden on the same day. One arrives at dawn and shoots the flowerbeds in soft light; the other comes at dusk and frames the shadows under the trees. Set the pictures side by side and they seem to show different gardens, yet neither photographer has lied. Each simply stood in one spot, at one hour, for one reason. To understand the real garden you do not pick a favourite and throw the other away. You study both, you ask when and why each was taken, and you notice what fell outside the edge of the frame. Handle the past the same way: hold rival accounts together, ask where each came from, and mind the corners that no one chose to show.

The source-work run

Answer each one correctly to keep your lives. Choose the best answer.

Judge which source is more useful

Read each situation and choose the best answer.

• You want to know how ordinary people felt about a new law. Which source is likely to be most useful?
• A source is one-sided and full of opinion. What should you do with it?
• Two accounts of the same event disagree. What is the best next step?

Build a source judgement

Choose the word for each gap to complete one point about using sources.

Explain how to weigh up a source

A friend thinks that if a source is biased it is useless, and that a textbook and a diary are the same kind of thing. Using what you have learned, explain how a historian weighs up a source and an interpretation.

• Explain the difference between a source and an interpretation
• Explain what provenance is and why it matters
• Explain the difference between how reliable a source is and how useful it is
• Explain why a biased source can still be useful
• Explain why comparing sources and asking why interpretations differ lead to a fair judgement