This document provides guidance on analyzing historical texts. It defines primary and secondary sources, and unwritten and written sources. When analyzing a source, historians ask who, when, where, what, why, and how to determine reliability. A historical text analysis involves careful reading, classification, analysis, and conclusion. The analysis addresses the document's category, author, audience, reliability, importance, and key words and concepts. It explains the text's meaning and intention, and relates it to historical context. The main idea is summarized in one sentence. Historians must avoid simply paraphrasing a text and including personal opinions.

1. HISTORICAL SOURCES AND
HOW TO MAKE A HISTORICAL TEXT ANALYSIS

2. HISTORICAL
SOURCES
PRIMARY
SOURCES
SECONDARY
SOURCES
UNWRITTEN
WRITTEN
- Human or material remains
- Oral testimonies
- Images
- Document
- Literature
- Memories and diaries
- Letters
- Newspapers and magazines
- Epigraphy
- Numismatics
- Philately
- History books
- Biographies
- Articles
- Films
http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/primarysourc
esinHistory.html

3. Historians have to check the
source reliability and
determine how trustworthy
the source is.
Historians ask six basic
questions to determine a
source reliability:
- WHO?
- WHEN?
- WHERE?
- WHAT?
- WHY?
- HOW?
Another significant question
is FOR WHAT PURPOSE?

4. Not everything you find on
books or the Internet is
accurate or reliable.

5. HISTORICAL
DOCUMENTS
ANALYSIS
- CAREFUL READING: 1st in a more general way and the second time in a more
detailed way, underlining the most important data
- CLASSIFICATION
- ANALYSIS
- CONCLUSION
- category / type of document
- public or private?
- time frame and place: chronology and geographic location
- author:brief biography
- audience: what is the intended audience of the document?
To whom is the document addressed?
- reliability and accuracy
- importance of the document: Why is the document
important? How does it contribute to the knowledge of the
period?
- consequenes in the short and the long term
- Key words or concepts: explain their meaning
- Explain with your own words what the text is saying and why,
what the intention of the writer is
- Frame or relate the text with its historical context . This doesn’t
mean explaining all that you know about the unit or topic, but
being able to relate or connect what the text is saying with what
you know.
- Main idea, summarized in one sentence: what’s the text about?

6. TYPES OF TEXTS
HISTORICAL
(PRIMARY
SOURCES)
HISTORIOGRAPHIC
(SECONDARY SOURCES)
- LEGAL: laws, acts, constitutions, treaties,
international agreements, charters
- POLITICAL: proclamations, manifestoes,
speeches, political programs, pamphlets
- NARRATIVE OR LITERARY: letters,
memories, diaries, autobiographies, essays,
novels that reflect a period
- JOURNALISTIC: press articles, reports
- ECONOMIC: economic reports, contracts
(Written in the
time the events
happened)
works written by historians or experts after
the facts

7. WHAT YOU MUSTN’T DO IN A TEXT ANALYSIS?
- PARAPHRASE THE TEXT: REPEATING WHAT THE
TEXT SAYS WITH OTHER WORDS, WITHOUT
EXPLAINING ANYTHING
- COPY PARTS OF THE TEXT LITERALLY YOU CAN
TAKE SOME SENTENCES OF THE TEXT LITERALLY
AS AN EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING YOU’VE
EXPLAINED PREVIOUSLY, BUT WHAT YOU COPY
HAS TO BE WRITTEN “IN BRACKETS”, SO THAT IT
CAN BE EASILY DISTINGUISHED FROM WHAT YOU
HAVE WRITTEN PERSONALLY
- USE THE TEXT AS A PRETEXT OR EXCUSE TO
“PUKE”A QUESTION OR UNIT.
- EXPRESS YOUR PERSONAL OPINION IN THE
CONCLUSION. YOU HAVE TO TRY TO BE
OBJECTIVE. DON’T USE THE FIRST PERSON (I, ME,
MY)