American culture
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AMST101_Lecture_HistoricalResearchMethods.pptxDoing History
A brief introduction to historical methods
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Primary and Secondary Historical Research
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All historical writing depends on sources. Once scholars have located a topic and formulated a set of historical questions, they turn to sources to begin answering them.
Sources of information are generally categorized as:
primary
secondary
tertiary
This categorization is dependent on their originality and their proximity to the source or origin.
What is a PRIMARY source?
Primary sources are original records of the political, economic, artistic, scientific, social, and intellectual thoughts and achievements of specific historical periods.
Primary sources are produced by the people who participated in and witnessed the past and therefore primary sources offer a variety of points of view and perspectives of events, issues, people, and places.
These records can be found anywhere: in a home, a government archive, etc. the important thing to remember is they were used or created by someone with firsthand experience of an event
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Primary sources are not just documents and written records. Primary sources take a variety of formats:
Audio: oral histories or memoirs, interviews, music
Images: photographs, videos, film, fine art
Objects: clothing (fashion or uniforms), tools, pottery, gravestones, inventions, weapons, memorabilia
Statistics: census data, population statistics, weather records (data that has not be interpreted)
Text: letters, diaries, original documents, legal agreements, treaties, works of literature, maps, laws, advertisements, recipes, genealogical information, sermons/lectures
Examples of Primary Sources
Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower
Country Joe and the Fish, ”Feel-Like-
I’m- Fixin ’-to-Die Rag,” 1967.
Take a moment to explore each source—what type of information can you learn from these various sources?
What is a SECONDARY source?
Secondary sources:
describe, interpret, analyse and evaluate the primary sources
comment on and discuss the evidence provided by primary sources
are works, which are one or more steps removed from the event, or information they refer to, being written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
All history books are therefore secondary sources, which rely on primary sources to help tell the story.
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Secondary sources usually take one of the following forms:
bibliographies (may also be tertiary)
biographical works
Commentaries
history monographs (other than fiction and autobiography)
Some textbooks
works of criticism and interpretation
How to easily distinguish between primary and secondary sources?
While primary sources are the original records created by firsthand witnesses of an event, secondary sources are documents, texts, images, and objects about an event created by someone who typically referenced the primary sources for their information.
What is a TERTIARY source?
Tertiary sources:
Index, abstract, organize, compile or digest other sources.
A source for quick facts or a means of getting a general overview on a subject.
Not usually credited to a particular author.
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Tertiary sources can include:
dictionaries
encyclopedias
almanacs
fact books
Wikipedia
bibliographies
works of criticism and interpretation
textbooks (when their chief purpose is to list, summarize, or repackage existing ideas/information)
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When you’re feeling lost or overwhelmed tertiary sources can be a smart place to begin your research
