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Former British prime minister Winston Churchill’s history of World War II is a primary source,
because he was directly involved in some of the events he describes, and also a secondary source,
because he uses a variety of historical sources to tell the story of events during the war in which
he was not directly involved.
Effective historical thinking requires the ability to analyze primary sources — reading carefully for the
author’s point of view and purpose, the format of the document, and its context — as well as to analyze
the ways historians create interpretations (secondary sources) based on their own use of primary source
evidence. Until now, you might have thought of your school text-
books as conveyors of facts and truths, but by definition, the narra- Historians analyze the past based Historical Thinking Skills: A Primer
tive of this book is in fact a secondary source with which you might on evidence, including primary
disagree. To do so, you would use historical thinking skills to ques- and secondary sources.
tion the authors’ interpretation of primary sources.
this sample.
Primary sources include written documents as well as objects, artistic works, oral accounts, landscapes
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
that humans have modified, or even materials contained within the human body, such as DNA. For
example, by using scientific and medical information, historians have come to see the historical role of
diseases such as the Black Death, which killed about one-third of the European population over just a
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
few years in the middle of the fourteenth century. These sources become evidence once they are se-
Uncorrected proofs have been used in
lected to answer a historical question. Worth Publishers.

In assessing primary sources, you need to begin with a careful examination of the source itself. Every
primary source — textual, visual, or statistical — was created for a specific purpose. This doesn’t mean
by Bedford, Freeman &
the author had an agenda, though sometimes that is the case. But even if the author didn’t have an
agenda, every document is limited and imperfect in the information
it provides. Primary sources are creations from a particular time and When examining primary sources,
place and are often created for someone else, so determining the you should consider:
author, purpose, historical situation, and audience of a source is • Author/Point of View
essential to your understanding of it. It is often helpful to distin- • Purpose
guish between primary sources that people in the past intentionally • Historical Situation
Copyright ©
preserved (like government records) and those things that acciden- • Audience
tally survived (such as materials in ancient trash heaps).
Distributed
The following questions will help you examine primary sources:
Author/Point of View How does information about the author’s position, identity, or experience
help you assess his or her point of view or perspective?
What is the author’s position — occupation, authority, status?
What is the author’s identity — race, class, gender, age?
What is the author’s experience — education or training?
Purpose Given the information above, what inference(s) can you make about the author’s purpose
in creating this document?
What point might the author be trying to get across? Why?
If the author’s original purpose in writing differs from your own reasons for reading the
document historically, how do you read between the lines to determine useful evidence?
Historical Situation How do the time and place of this document’s creation help you understand
the document better?
What beliefs and/or practices of the time might make this document more understandable?
What important events might this document relate to?

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