Historical Inquiry and Source Analysis
What you must understand
This domain tests method, and it carries marks across every other topic. Candidates must be able to:
- Classify sources - primary (produced in the period) versus secondary (later interpretation), and recognise that a later history can still be a primary source for its own era's attitudes.
- Analyse provenance - author, audience, purpose, date, genre and context. Provenance is not a checklist; each element must be linked to what the source can support.
- Assess reliability and usefulness - reliability concerns accuracy and bias; usefulness concerns relevance to the specific question. A biased source can be extremely useful.
- Evaluate evidence and interpretation - weigh sources against each other, identify corroboration and contradiction, and recognise that historians select and interpret.
- Construct an argument - clear thesis, organised paragraphs, integrated evidence, and evaluation of differing views.
Traps in questions
- Calling a source 'biased, therefore useless'. That is the classic error; explain what it is useful for.
- Confusing reliability with usefulness. They answer different questions.
- Describing provenance without applying it. 'It was written in 1917' earns nothing unless linked to meaning.
- Treating a source as a window on facts rather than on its author's perspective.
- Ignoring silence. What a source omits can be as revealing as what it says.
Worked example
A government recruitment poster: purpose is persuasion, audience is potential recruits and their families, so it is poor evidence of actual conditions but excellent evidence of official values and rhetoric. Corroborate with letters or enlistment data before claiming anything about real experience.
Rule of thumb: for every source ask who made it, for whom, why, and what can it therefore prove - then state the limit.