This document discusses sources in history and how historians work with different types of sources. It explains that historians gather primary and secondary sources as evidence, develop interpretations of that evidence, and present their arguments. The document outlines the different kinds of sources historians use, including primary and secondary sources, and how to evaluate each type. It also discusses the different forms historical writing can take, such as arguments, narratives, and descriptions, and how historians develop and evaluate interpretations from sources.

1. Sources in History
Dr. Poulami Aich Mukherjee
mepoulami@gmail.com

2. What is History?
• History is not everything that happened
in the past.
• History is not merely a description of
what happened in the past, but also an
attempt to understand it.
• History requires evidence.
• The evidence cannot speak for itself.

3. What does a Historian do?
• Gather evidence
• Draw inferences from the evidence
• Decide what evidence is important
• Develop an interpretation or way of
making sense of the evidence.
• Find an appropriate way of
presenting that interpretation.

4. What is Historical Writing?
• Argument: interpretation in the form of a
thesis and its justification
• Narrative: interpretation in the form of a
narrative or story.
• Description: portrayal of a person, place
or object at a particular moment in time

5. Kinds of Sources
• Primary Sources
- The “raw materials”
• Secondary Sources
-The “historiography”
• Tertiary Sources
- exclusively on secondary sources

6. Reading a primary source
• Place the source in its historical
context.
• Classify the source.
• Understand the source.
• Evaluate the source as a source of
historical information

7. Understanding Secondary Sources
Three ways to use a secondary sources
• As a collection of facts
• As a source of background material.
• As an interpretation

8. Using interpretations
• Finding the interpretation:
-An Essay
-A Book
• The importance of the interpretation
• Historians often disagree on
interpretations

9. Evaluating an interpretation
• The Argument
• Evaluation
• The Debate

10. Reading a Historical Argument
• Definition
• Purpose
• Parts of an Argument:
- Thesis
- Argument
- Evidence

11. Reading a Historical Description
• Historical Descriptions
• Interpreting a Historical Description
• Evaluating a Historical Description as
a Work of History.
• Evaluating a Historical Description as
an Interpretation

12. Reading a Narrative
• Historical Narratives
• Interpreting a Historical Narrative
• Evaluating a Historical Narrative as a
Work of History.
• Evaluating a Historical Narrative as a
Narrative

13. Conclusion
Be Your Own Interpreter