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Assignment 2

This document contains an activity completed by a student for a history course. The activity includes two multiple choice sections testing the student's knowledge of primary and secondary sources. It also includes an essay assignment where the student was asked to define and give examples of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources and discuss the criteria historians use to validate sources. The document provides the student's responses to the activities and an evaluation rubric for the essay.

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Marvin Gwapo
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90 views

Assignment 2

This document contains an activity completed by a student for a history course. The activity includes two multiple choice sections testing the student's knowledge of primary and secondary sources. It also includes an essay assignment where the student was asked to define and give examples of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources and discuss the criteria historians use to validate sources. The document provides the student's responses to the activities and an evaluation rubric for the essay.

Uploaded by

Marvin Gwapo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Name:

Course and Section:

Activity 1

True or False. Write T if the statement is correct and F if it is false.

_T___1. It is from our historical sources that our history is studied and written.
__T__2. Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the
event or topic being studied.
__F__3. Photographs, old sketches and drawings are examples of secondary sources.
___T_4. Secondary source is a testimony of anyone who is not an eyewitness.
__T__5. Examples of primary sources are books, articles and scholarly journals.
__F__6. Only primary sources may be used in writing history.
__F_7. Internal criticism is done by looking at a source’s quality of paper and type of ink, among
others.
__T__8. There are three types of sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
__F__9. Only secondary sources may be used in writing history.
__T__10. The historian’s most important research tools are historical sources.

Activity 2
Essay. Answer 90)the following:

1.List the categories of sources that historical researchers use and give examples for each.
1. Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based, including:
o original written works – poems, diaries, court records, interviews, surveys, and
original research/fieldwork, and
o research published in scholarly/academic journals.
2. Secondary sources are those that describe or analyze primary sources, including:
o reference materials – dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, and
o books and articles that interpret, review, or synthesize original research/fieldwork.
3. Tertiary sources are those used to organize and locate secondary and primary sources.
o Indexes – provide citations that fully identify a work with information such as
author, titles of a book, artile, and/or journal, publisher and publication date,
volume and issue number and page numbers.
o Abstracts – summarize the primary or secondary sources,
o Databases – are online indexes that usually include abstracts for each primary or
secondary resource, and may also include a digital copy of the resource.

2.What criteria do historical researchers use to validate their sources of data?


The same way - in principle - any of us “verify the validity” of what we see, hear,
and read in any given day. We look at the source itself: what do we know about who
wrote it? Was he/she a notorious partisan for one side or another? What else has he/she
written, and how reliable does that appear to be? We look at other sources for the same
event, if they exist: do they confirm our original source? if not, are they at least
compatible with it (e.g., source B doesn’t exactly say what source A claimed, but may be
based on the view from the other side of the battlefield? We look at general plausibility:
how likely is it that there were in fact ten million enemy troops, or that a dragon
swallowed the sun? Does what this source said confirm the general tenor or trajectory of
what we know of other events of the period, or is it way out of line? (If the latter, it may
still be true, but would require additional “confirmation.”)
Quite frequently, the first method a historian will use is comparison with other,
established sources. For example, he learns of a new Persian text describing details
previously unknown about the end of the Sassanid Empire. He would compare it to
acknowledged Byzantine and Arabic texts that deal with the same period, and compare
them for consistency. Of course, this method has drawbacks. There is often no source
credible enough for this kind of comparison. Also, how does the historian know that the
new information actually disproves the old, not the other way around? These questions
often come down to judgment calls of the historical community.
Another way would be to consider the inherent trustworthiness and plausibility of
the source. If it is a text written with anachronistic ink or paper, or uses a language that
was not yet developed (to the best of the historian's knowledge), then it can be
discredited. It may describe events or historical regions that could not have plausibly
been known to the purported author. Similar methods can be used for non-textual
sources.
A final, even less reliable, evaluation of usefulness or accuracy (of primary
sources, at least) is using dating methods. These include comparing level of deterioration
of the source with similar items from the same period, or using carbon dating. The
problem with these methods is that you need a base item; if the dating of the base item is
at all unreliable, the historical evaluation will be compromised.
In conclusion, there are various methods for establishing a source's reliability and
usefulness, but each has significant drawbacks. There are, of course, other methods than
the ones I have discussed, but they generally have similar drawbacks. If the source is
secondary or tertiary, then the historian must evaluate the reliability of the ultimate
primary source(s), and the logic of the conclusions drawn by the secondary or tertiary
source.

Scoring Rubrics for Essay

Category Exemplary Superior Satisfactor Unsatisfactor


y y
Knowledge/ Demonstrates Demonstrate Demonstrate Demonstrates
Comprehensio thorough s s limited
n 25% understanding considerable understandin understanding
of topic. understandin g of topic
g of the topic
of the topic.
Content Response Response Response Response is
25% indicates depth indicates lacks focus unclear,
& complexity of simplistic or or illogical or
thought in answering repetitive demonstrates incoherent.
the essay. thoughts in confused or
answering conflicting
the essay thinking.
question.
Quality of Response was Response Response Response had
Writing written in an was written had a little no style or
25% extraordinary style in an style or voice voice.
& voice. interesting
style.
Gives some
Very information & Somewhat new Gives no new
well organized. informative information information &
& organized. but poorly very poorly
organized. organized.
Grammar, Almost no spelling, Few spelling A number of So many
Punctuation & punctuation or & spelling, spelling,
Spelling grammatical errors. punctuation punctuation punctuation &
25% errors, minor or grammatical
grammatical grammatical errors that it
errors. errors. interferes with
the meaning.
Sub Totals
100%

Over-all-
Score 100%

Evaluation:
Test l. Direction. Determine if the source would be a Primary Source (P) or a Secondary Source
(S).
1. Statistical tables, graphs and charts. P
2. A YouTube video describing how the rice terraces were built. P
3. A biography of Ferdinand Marcos written by a foreigner. S
4. A book describing Ferdinand Magellan sailing to the Philippines. S
5. A contemporary artist's painting of what life was probably like in the 19 th century. P
6. A history book describing the life of Gregorio del Pilar in the Battle of Tirad Pass. P
7. Nestor Mata describing his experience about the plane crash of 1957 that took the life of
former Pres. Magsaysay. P
8. A legal document signed by two contracting parties. P
9. A text book describing the EDSA Revolution 1. P
10. A student reading an official report about the cause of Pinatubo’s crash in 1957. S

Test ll. Enumeration:

Enumerate the following:


11-15 Enumerate examples of primary sources used in studying history.
 Diaries
 Journals
 Speeches
 Interviews
 Letters
 Memos
 Photograph
 Videos
 Public Opinion polls
 Government records
16-20 Enumerate examples of secondary sources that had interpreted primary sources.
 Edited books
 Journal Articles
 Encyclopedia
 Dictionary Entries
 Newspaper
 Magazine reports

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