How to gather information, analyze sources, and draw conclusions

1. Methods of Historical
Inquiry
How to analyze and interpret primary and secondary sources.

2. Last class…
• We looked at the hurdles
historians face in relation
to primary and secondary
sources.
• What were some of the
hurdles we looked at?

3. Can you identify which of these hurdles relate to
primary sources, secondary sources, or both
primary and secondary sources?
• Bias
• Propaganda
• Inaccurate information
• Insufficient of information
• Lost knowledge of language
• Forgeries
• Misinterpretation of primary sources
• False citations
• Primary and Secondary
• Primary and Secondary
• Primary and Secondary
• Primary
• Primary
• Primary
• Secondary
• Secondary

4. So how do we, as budding historians, avoid
these traps?
• That’s what we’ll be looking at now…

5. What is historical research?
Historical research means gathering and analyzing
information to better understand the past.
Again, it is a lot like solving a mystery.
Anyone who wants to do this research well,
must be careful to understand any
shortcomings in their sources.

6. Step One: Know the mystery you want to
solve and formulate your question.
• There are a number of reasons you may want to
investigate some mystery of the past…

7. You may find a new source and want to investigate it—
investigate what information it adds to our under-
standing of the past.
“Oh, wow! Look
what I found! I
wonder what time
period this is from
and what this tells
us about the
culture.”

8. You may want to know about a certain event or
element of culture.
“Hmmm…I wonder what
Neanderthal culture was like. I
think I’ll go research”

9. You may question the accuracy in the way a secondary
source interprets primary sources or explains some
element of history.
“Hmmm…this seems biased. I think
I’ll check out another source to see
an alternative explanation.”

10. Don’t forget to express your historical quest
in a clear question.
For example:
• “What does the fish on this old
Hindu artifact which I found buried
in my backyard symbolize?”
• “What was the diet of the Incas”
• “Is Barack Obama really a Muslim
born in Africa?” (these are two
allegations put forth by some
Republicans and discussed on Fox
News.)

11. Step Two: Gather as many sources as possible.
• After you’ve formulated
your question, you need
to gather your sources.
• It is best to have as many
sources as possible and to
have a wide variety of
sources, such as paintings
from the time, other
artifacts, original written
documents, secondary
sources, etc.

12. Step Three: Analyzing Your Sources

13. When analyzing a source, it is important to
remember and employ the 6 C’s
1. CONTENT (What?):
1. Look carefully at what is being communicated by the source
2. CITATION (Who?):
1.Who created the text?
3. CONTEXT (When?):
1.When was the source created and what time is the source talking about? What was going on at the
time it was created and the time period with which the soure deals?
4. CONNECTIONS (How?:
1.How is the source be linked to other sources and information you already know about?
5. CRITICAL THINKING (Why?):
1.Why was this source made? Is it objective? Emotional? Biased? Is it factual or a cultural reflection,
such as art? Is it accurate?
6. CONCLUSION (What is the value?):
1.What is the historical value of this source? How does it contribute to our understanding of history?

14. Step Four: Synthesizing
• Synthesize means mix together into a meaningful, coherent whole.
It means putting all the clues together to come to a conclusion

15. Step Five: Communicating What You’ve
Learned
Finally, you need to be able to communicate
your information and your conclusions to other
people. You need to cite your sources and you
need to explain how you arrived at your
conclusions.
There are many ways to communicate…how
many can you come up with?

16. Communicating!
• Video
• Speaking
• Writing
• Art
• Graph or chart
• Theatrical performance
• Writing and performing a song
• Powerpoint
• Multimedia, using multiple
forms of communication such
as those mentioned above.

17. To Sum Up…
1. Formulate a question
2. Gather resources
3. Evaluate resources
1. Content—What?
2. Citation—Who?
3. Context—When?
4. Connections—How? (How does this fit in with what I know from other sources?)
5. Critical Thinking—Why? (was this created)
6. Conclusion—What is the historical value of this source?
4. Synthesize all you’ve learned from your sources
5. Communicate what you’ve learned.