Skills Exploration: Primary and Secondary Source Analysis

Primary and Secondary Source Analysis

One of the most important skills of historians is the ability to evaluate and analyze primary and secondary sources. As we saw in the Module 1 Skills Exploration: How to Study History, there are three types of sources you will encounter in your research – primary, secondary, and tertiary.  Tertiary sources should never be the basis of scholarly research, so this assignment focuses on your ability to locate secondary sources related to the primary source you select, analyze both, and compare both your sources and the source types.

As a reminder:

• A primary source is a first-hand account of a person, event or idea.  This is a source that is contemporary to the historical event being studied.  For example, Plato’s account of Socrates trial and death in The Apology is a primary source on Socrates. Raphael’s The School of Athens seen here is a secondary source on the topic of Socrates.
• A secondary source is a source constructed by historians and others by piecing together primary sources.
• A tertiary source, which we will not use in the assignment, are sources that compile other sources and come to no new interpretations or conclusions of their own. Usually these sources do not credit a particular author or provide a bibliography. For example, a reference entry from Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia on “Abraham Lincoln,” even though it is found via the CCCOnline Library, would not be an acceptable source for research as it is tertiary.

What Is Analysis and Evaluating?

Analyzing a document means asking the “five Ws” – Who? What? Where? When? And why?

Evaluating a source involves using the answers from your analysis to explain the explain the document’s significance.  When evaluating primary and secondary sources, you should answer the following questions:

• Who was the author and who was the audience?
• What type of document is it? What is the topic or subject and author’s thesis? What was the purpose of the document or motive for writing it? Does the author have an obvious bias and what is the bias?
• Where and when was the document written and what was its effect on history? What was the historical context for the document? (i.e., what was going on at the time that might have influenced the author’s opinions and what he/she wrote?) If it is a secondary source, how did the source affect your view of the topic or event?
• Why was the document written? The purpose may be stated in the document itself or it may be inferred by reading between the lines. Is the document credible (believable/reliable)? Why or why not?

Who and What?

• The author and perspective: The first thing you should do for any source is conduct a search on the author of your document.  History is colored by people’s perspectives.  It is important to understand the background of your authors or creators, so you can analyze their perspectives.  These perspectives have been formed by their beliefs, values, backgrounds, and assumptions, all of which may introduce bias.   Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes it is not.  It is important that you recognize bias in any source you evaluate, for history or otherwise.  One way you might do this is to look for specific word choices in your sources.  For example, an author who uses words like “hero” to describe a person is expressing admiration for that figure’s actions.  This is a positive bias.
• Type of document: If you have any questions about what type of document your source is, refer to the various types of primary and secondary sources listed in Module 1’s How to Study History exploration.
• The audience: This is never all people and it is rarely people interested in history or students.  For example, a letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, while very important historically does not have an audience of the American people.  Instead, Abigail was writing to her husband, John.  He was her audience.

When and Where?

• When?: You need to determine when your sources were written. In the case of a primary source, a letter written in 1863 by a Southerner is likely to be very different than one written in 1820, even if it is written by the same Southerner. This difference is very apparent in the historical context as you will see in the next section. For a secondary source, an interpretation created in 1989 about the Cold War, might be very different from one that was written today, in the 21st century. In the first case, your author’s interpretation would likely have been influenced by living during the events he or she is describing. (See bias above).
• Where?: This is likely more important for your primary sources, but can also affect your secondary sources. For example, a Russian scholar studying the Cold War will likely have a different perspective than a Japanese historian.

Historical Context

This is a concept that many students struggle with probably because they think it is complicated, but it is a pretty simple one. Historical context is literally what was going on in the area, country, world, etc., around the author when they were creating their source that may have influenced what they wrote. No historical event occurs in a vacuum without influence from the world around it. Important events are often connected in some way to other events, even if those connections are not apparent at the time. Historians are discovering those connections. Going back to our earlier example of a letter from a Southerner in 1863, their work is obviously going to be influenced by the American Civil War. You can make a pretty reliable assumption that a Southerner in 1863 supported the Confederacy, so the American Civil War would have a significant influence on what was written. This is the historical context.

Similarly, for secondary sources, what was going on at the time that a historian creates his interpretation can have significant impact on his or her conclusions and what they chose to study. A feminist historian today, during the “Me Too” movement may have a different take on Christine de Pisan’s City of the Ladies than one in the 1970s at the height of radical feminism. Thus historical context, while seemingly unrelated, helps you make determinations as to the perspective and biases of your authors.

Credibility or Reliability

Another important thing to consider when evaluating a source is whether it is credible or reliable. This is a very important skill to have, especially in the Internet Age where literally anybody can publish anything. Just because it’s on the Internet, doesn’t mean it’s true or reliable or credible.

Some fast and hard things to look for include:

• Can you find an author? Is there contact information?
• What are the author’s qualifications?
• Who published the document? Is the affiliation with a respected institution?
• What about the URL? Is it a commercial webpage? (This doesn’t negate a source’s credibility, but you should proceed with caution).
• Is there a bibliography?
• Is the source objective? Is the information detailed?
• When was the source last updated?

See this very helpful LibGuide from the Cornell University Library for a list of questions to ask yourself as you are evaluating sources (you practiced this in Module 1):

Cornell University Library. “Evaluating Web Pages: Questions to Consider: Categories.” Cornell University Library LibGuides. September 12, 2017. https://guides.library.cornell.edu/evaluating_Web_pages.

And this source from the University of California Berkeley also located in Module 1:

Berkeley Library. “Evaluating Resources: Home.” Berkeley Library: University of California. February 20, 2018. https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/evaluating-resources.

One last note, just because a source is biased doesn’t mean it isn’t reliable. The best plan of action in this case would be to find a source that offers a counter argument.