Working with sources

Historical writing should not just be your opinion; it should be based on evidence drawn from a range of sources. Your job when making a historical argument is to use your evidence to convince the reader. In an ideal scenario, the reader will finish reading your work and will be persuaded by the conclusions you have reached. 

That’s not to say, however, that historians always agree. Historians often have different views, and that happens for a number of reasons:

–> They have looked at different sources;

–> They have given different emphasis or weighting to the same sources;

–> They have interpreted the sources differently.

Reading widely and consulting a wide range of primary and secondary sources can help us feel confident that our views are supported by evidence, making it more likely that our reader will be persuaded by our argument. 

How to use primary sources 

Primary sources are the building blocks from which historians construct their interpretations of the past. Sources can come in a wide range of forms, from government documents and news reports to diaries, letters, photographs, cartoons, posters and eyewitness accounts. Primary sources are usually contemporary to the period in question, or from a later date by someone who witnessed the event in question firsthand. Whether the source is visual or written, you should ask yourself the following questions: 

–> What is the provenance of the source? Who created it, how has it survived, and who chose to preserve it?

–> What is the content of the source? What does it show and tell us? What does it include, and what might it be leaving out?

–> What perspective does the source provide? Who was its intended audience, and for what purpose was it created?

–> Where does the source sit in the wider historical context?

–> What inferences can we make from the source? Inferences are additional pieces of information we can glean from sources. We might be able to work out something about contemporary attitudes, for example, that is not directly stated or shown in the source. When we infer information from a source we are not simply repeating it, but drawing a conclusion from the evidence the source provides.

You are welcome to find and use your own primary sources. We encourage you to explore your school/college library, as well as local libraries and archives, to ensure you have access to some good-quality writing on this period. 

You should try and use a number of primary and secondary sources. Try not to approach the sources with a fixed idea of what your argument is going to be. If you do this, you risk skewing the evidence to fit with what you want to say, instead of constructively analysing the information in front of you. This is often called confirmation bias. 

Confirmation bias is something we encounter a lot on social media, in tabloid newspapers and in less sophisticated writing. If you are having to bend the facts to fit your argument, your argument is probably not very solid. 

Hopefully, while you examine primary and secondary sources you will gain an idea of the points you would like to make, and you will be able to support your claims with evidence from these sources. 

Keep track of the sources you are consulting and include these in a bibliography at the end of your essay. Your bibliography is not included in your word limit. 

But what are sources for?

Think of sources like tiles in a mosaic: when considered alongside one another they can help historians to build a clearer picture of an event in the past. When we investigate sources thoroughly we are like detectives, using all the evidence we can find in order to understand what has happened and construct a narrative that explains the events in question.

The job of the historian is not simply to compile facts about the past, but rather to use those facts to understand as fully as possible what has happened in the past, and why. It is only with sources – evidence – that historians can formulate their interpretations of the past. A good interpretation will never simply be an unsubstantiated opinion – it will always be supported with evidence.

Other approaches to primary sources

As well as asking yourself about the provenance, content, perspective, context, and inferences of each source, you can also consider this comprehensive list of questions from the National Archives: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/students/study-resources/working-with-records/

The National Archives also have handy tips for when you are considering photographic sources: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/students/working-with-photographs/using-and-interpreting-photographic-sources/

The US National Archives offer another way of approaching sources: https://docsteach.org/resources/document-analysis

How to include secondary sources

A piece of work which analyses primary sources and comes up with an argument based on that information is a secondary source. You might have heard these works called interpretations. Historians’ interpretations are based on their analysis of primary sources and will have been written after the event in question. Secondary sources are often books or articles. 

Edexcel defines secondary sources as ‘an attempt to portray and/or make meaning of the past using evidence, that is, a deliberate construct created after the event.’ ^[1]

Let’s look more closely at this definition:

Attempt: No historian’s work is definitive. The work of historical analysis is an effort to do something with as much rigour and accuracy as possible, but other interpretations are often possible, depending on the range of evidence you are looking at and how you interpret it.

Portray and/or make meaning: Historians’ portrayals of the past are always the work of interpretation. There is a crucial difference, however, between interpreting and inventing. Historians interpret the past based on the evidence they examine.

Evidence: This is essential in order for interpretations to be creditable. Historians’ work must be based on clear evidence, in the form of primary sources.

After: Unlike primary sources, which are usually contemporary to the event in question, secondary sources are the historian’s attempt to interpret what has happened some time after the event, based on thorough and careful use of primary sources.

In the study of history, reading secondary sources is really important so that you know what other people have already said about an event. Reading a wide range of secondary sources will give you a sense of different historians’ interpretations. As with primary sources, there are some questions you should always ask:

–> Who wrote it? Are they a scholar? Are they a journalist? Is their work based on original primary research, or are they relying on archival work done by others? Are they respected in the field?

–> Who published this book? Being published by an academic publisher (such as Cambridge University Press) suggests that the book has been through peer review, meaning it has been read and commented on by expert scholars in the field before it is deemed worthy of publication.

–> Why was the book written? Does the writer have a bias or a particular motivation for writing the book? Are they approaching the work with scholarly rigour and integrity?

–> What sources, both primary and secondary, has the historian used, and are they listed (in footnotes and/or a bibliography) so that you can check them? 

You might disagree with the interpretations some historians make, and that’s OK. Just make sure that any conclusions you reach are supported by evidence from primary sources. 

Don’t be tempted to create an essay that only discusses what other historians think. Grounding your work in primary and secondary sources is important, but you need to be adding something of your own to the historical debate. We want to hear your voice. 

^[1] “Guidance on sources and interpretations,” Pearson, accessed 12 May, 2022, https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/History/2016/Teaching-and-learning-materials/GCSE_History_Sources_and_interpretations_guide.pdf, p. 2.