How do you know if a historical source is biased?

[Music] as part of your history studies you'll be required to read historical sources particularly primary sources while doing so you'll begin noticing that some language used by the sources creator is quite extreme or obviously one-sided when you notice this you may have discovered bias in your source identifying bias is a powerful skill in source analysis because it helps you draw conclusions about the reliability and usefulness of your source so what is bias bias is when the creators perspective is so strongly for or against something that the information in the source has become unbalanced or prejudiced

since all sources are created by human beings and all people feel strongly about things all sources ultimately contain some degree of bias but it's not always possible to detect it so when you find bias in a source it is usually categorized into two kinds either extremely positive or extremely negative if extremely positive you can describe the source as being strongly in favor of or pro something for example you could say that a source has a pro-german bias if extremely negative you can describe the source as being strongly against or anti-something for example you could say

that a source has an anti-communist bias on occasions particularly in exams when you're asked what buyers his present in a specific source and you cannot find one you can simply say that it is a balanced source so how do you detect bias in a source in order to find bias you need to look very carefully at what the source says if it is a written source you'll need to find word choices that are extreme in their descriptions if the visual source like a photograph or a painting you're looking for depictions that are clearly exaggerated for

the purposes of this video though will focus mainly on written sources so what kind of word choices are you looking for when you're reading a source here are some ideas extreme positivity when describing people or events the language of the sources to positive and does not provide any negative information extreme negativity when describing people or events the language used by the creator is too negative and does not provide any positive information silence the source intentionally leaves out important information of which you are aware from other sources obvious errors the source provides information that you know

to be false based on what you know from alternate sources so if you notice any of these things in your source it indicates that the creator has a specific bias about the person or event and wants to communicate in a way that positions the audience to see things from the same buyers perspective so once you've noticed bias how do you then prove that that bias exists there are three things you should do number one provide a direct quote from the source that demonstrates overly positive or negative language number two explain what perspective the creator wanted

to convince the audience to have on the person or event based upon this bias and thirdly if necessary you may also want to explain what motivated the Creator to be so biased in their source but please be aware just because you found bias in a source doesn't automatically make the source unreliable or inaccurate of course many sources that are consistently biased do tend to be less reliable so now that you know what bias is how to detect it and how to prove it let's have a look at some examples to help you practice in 1938

when Hitler's Nazi Party was really in Germany there was a children's book printed called the poisonous mushroom it was created to teach racist Nazi beliefs about the Jewish people to children it was an incredibly racist book as you'll see one section of this book says that Jews are poison just as a single poisonous mushroom can kill a whole family so a single Jew can destroy a whole village a whole city even an entire nation the use of extreme language in this book like destroy a whole village a whole city even an entire nation is clear

evidence of a strong bias against Jews even claiming that the Jewish people as a group are poison is clearly negative language therefore it can be successfully proven that this source is strongly against Jews or anti-jewish by the way a technical term for anti-jewish bias is called anti-semitism this source therefore is anti-semitic on to our second example by the way secondary sources are not immune from bias either a famous 19th century german historian by the name of Theodor Mommsen famously described julius caesar in extremely biased terms he said that caesar was a unique man his whole

nature was perfect purity he was the entire and perfect man the use of the words perfect purity and entire and perfect man are definitely over the top in their praise of caesar therefore we can confidently say that this source has a pro caesar bias now you have a better understanding of what bias means in regards to historical sources i hope that you feel more confident in your studies if you need further explanations examples and advice head on over to history skills calm and i'll see you next time