History 101: Analyzing Primary Sources: The Historian as Detective
Analyzing Primary Sources:
The Historian as Detective
To be a historian, even an amateur one, is to be the detective.
Sadly, historical sources do not surrender themselves to us, explaining themselves clearly and leaving no doubt as to their meaning. Like a criminal detective scene, each historical source is teeming with clues. The more you study the sources, the more clues you will find and the more historical meaning you can extract from them. And like the clues at a crime scene – the strand of hair under the desk, the flake of dandruff that fell on a notepad – the clues can often be missed. It takes a trained mind to note them and interpret them correctly. Part of the purpose of this course is to introduce you to how historians work and think.
The good historian is the good detective.
Like the good detective, historians know that sources, like witnesses in a murder case, often lie. Sometimes they lie on purpose, telling untruths to further a specific ideological, philosophical, personal, or political agenda. Sometimes they lie by omission, leaving out bits of information that are crucial to interpreting an event. Sometimes sources mislead unintentionally because the author's facts were incomplete, incorrect, or misinterpreted. Many sources are biased, either consciously or unconsciously, and contain unstated assumptions; all reflect the interests and concerns of their authors. Primary sources often conflict. As a result, one of the challenges historians face in writing a history paper iss evaluating the reliability and usefulness of their sources.
"But," you may be asking, "since primary sources originate in the actual period under discussion, surely they can be believed -- right?" After all, if the author is an eyewitness, why should anyone doubt his or her word? In contrast, we might lead toward dismissing primary sources completely on the grounds that they are too subjective; as any police investigator could tell you, eyewitnesses see different things and remember them in different ways.
In fact, historians try to steer a middle ground between these two approaches. Although primary sources make up the basic material with which they work, historians do not take the evidence provided by such sources at face value. That would be uncritical -- or unquestioning. Like good detectives, they evaluate the evidence, approaching their sources analytically and critically.
Historians have developed a variety of techniques for evaluating primary sources. One such technique is to compare sources; a fact or description contained in one source is more likely to be accepted as trustworthy if other sources support or corroborate it. another technique is to identify the author's biases. For example, the historian Polydore Vergil asserted in his book Anglica Historia that King Richard III killed his nephews. Since Vergil was a contemporary of Richard III, you might accept his account at face value, unless you were also aware that the book was commissioned by King Henry VII, an enemy of Richard III who had organized a rebellion against him, killed him in battle, and sized his throne. Taking this fact into consideration -- that is, taking into consideration the historical context of the document -- you would want to approach Vergil's work with a more critical eye, considering whether his loyalty to his employer led to any bias in his history. Historians also read their sources carefully for evidence of internal contradictions or logical inconsistencies, and they pay attention to their sources' use of language, since the adjectives and metaphors an author uses can point to hidden biases and unspoken assumptions.
As an undergraduate, you will probably not have the opportunity that professional historians do to work with original documents in their original languages. Instead, you will likely be relying on published, translated editions of primary sources or, increasingly, on documents posted on the internet. Not all translations are the same. Some are done by capable experts, and others are not. Bear this in mind. Also consider that the primary documents you often read in a class like ours are unlikely to be complete: they are probably extracts or selections. If so, you need to ask who made the selection and for what purpose.
Like a good hunter tracking a wily animal, you must be alert to many "signs and traces" that you may not have ever considered before. On such details -- a bad translation, a corrupt edition, a typesetter's error -- the historian may be led astray and the project of history derailed.
So -- how does one stay on track and catch the historical truth of the past?
First, you must get down cold the Five Tools of the Historian we examined earlier in our course. They can be found by clicking on this link. It links to the "How to Be An Historian: Five Tools." Now may be a good time to review those tools.
But more is needed.
The following Seven Questions are designed to develop this type of trained mind.
1. Identify the Source: What Type of Source is This?
What type of source is this? (an artifact, official document, travel journal, newspaper ad, article, poster, audio recording, map, data, toy, oral history? If the source is a document, what type of document is it? Identify it.)
Given the kind of source that you’ve identified (document, oral history, photo, painting, artifact, newspaper article, and so on), consider what the general strengths and weaknesses of this type of source are?
2. Who was the Maker, Writer, Creator of the Source?
Who or what created or produced this source? Who or what made it? What do you know of the maker of the source. If little or nothing, do some research. If after your research you still can’t answer this question, lay out the steps you would take to do so. That is, problem-solve the question.
Give a short biography of the author entirely in your own words. If you use a source or sources to answer this question, cite your source properly. (name of source, author of source, page number or website url or address)
If this is unclear, how might we find this piece of information? How might we infer or intelligently guess who the author was? Remember: a translator of a source is not the same thing as the maker of the source. And selections from a primary source are not the entire document. What was left out?
3. Time and Place: When Was the Document Made? And Where?
When was the source made? According to whom? Remember, if chronology is as important as we stated in The Five Tools of the Historian, then knowing when a document was made is important. It can help us determine causation, authorship, and much else.
Where was it made? According to whom?
4. Audience: Who Was the Document Made to Be Read By?
Who was the probable audience audiences for this source at the time that you believe it was written/created? That is, who or what was supposed to read this source (if the source is a document)? Who or what was supposed to use this source (if a document or artifact)?
Be aware that who the maker of the source says he or she is addressing may not be the true audience at all. Why? Also be aware that sometimes the makers of documents don’t say in the document who the audience is. In fact, this omission is common. Often the audience can be determined only be knowing the context of a document – where and when it was made, where it was published or delivered, and for what reason. The more you know the context, the more you can guess at (intelligently) the true audience of the source.
5. Summarizing Means Knowing: What Does the Document Say?
In one hundred words or less, what is the source about? Summarize its key points and discuss them. Follow these rules in all of your summaries:
Use only your own words. Quote nothing.
Put yourself in the position of the person who made this source: what would this person consider to be the most important points – the ones he would feel were essential in getting across what the document is about?
Be objective and fair. Stick to the document. Leave out of your summary every trace of your own opinions or feelings toward the source, its maker, or both. Your job is to convey to another only the essential points of the source – no more and no less.
Describe and summarize what is happening in your own words. Do NOT judge anything, simply describe. Make a deliberate effort to set aside your preconceptions. This is hard to do, but try nonetheless. Your task as an historian is not to pass judgment on what you read, but rather to give others an accurate description of what took place or of why someone in the past thought as he or she did. As historians, we are not interested in hearing whether you liked or disliked what Hammurabi set down in his legal code. Our first concern is that you understand what the document says and can accurately summarize its key points. To do this better, ask yourself: “What are the key points that the document covers? What terms are often repeated? What persons or concepts stand out? If people are mentioned, what are the main actions that they perform?” Then write your summary.
6. Context: What Was Happening When This Document Was Made?
Context is the larger historical picture in which the source and its maker can be situated. It is a framework of events and perspectives that throws light on the source and permits us to find further meanings in the source, meanings that may not be obvious in the source itself. To know the context, of course, we must get the chronology right: hence the importance of answer question 3 above, on when the document was made.
In the example given above on Polydore Vergil and King Henry VII, a key part of reading the document correctly is knowing the context: Polydore Vergil owed his job to King Henry. This of itself does not prove Vergil's bias, but it announces clearly that we need to read Vergil's account questioningly and test his claims.
In reading a document, always consider the larger historical picture and situate the source within a framework of events and perspectives, paying close attention to when they happened and where they took place. When was the source created? What else was happening at this time that may have influenced the creator? Where was this source created? How might location have influenced its creation? How might an intended or unintended audience have shaped the source?
7. PayOff Time: What Does the Primary Source Reveal To Us About the Past?
Considering all of the answers we have made to the questions above -- what does this source reveal or tell us about the time in which it was made? What does it say about the past?
Think of these Seven Questions, like the Historian's Tools, as seven ways of knowing the past better -- of getting at historical truth.
Be the Detective!