How to evaluate the reliability of historical sources

[Music] welcome to another history skills video today we're looking at how to evaluate the reliability of historical sources this skill will allow you to confidently choose quality sources for history assessment tasks especially research essays so what is reliability reliability is a source evaluation skill which asks you to draw a conclusion about whether a particular source is trustworthy it is important that the sources you use in your assessment pieces are reliable so that the quotes you use from them can be trusted but be careful it's hard to be completely sure that any source is 100% reliable

or completely unreliable therefore when we talk about reliability of sources we talk in terms of degrees of reliability for example you can conclude that a source is extremely very somewhat rarely or not very reliable so how do you assess reliability your decision about a sources reliability is based primarily upon what you know about the creator of the source therefore during your analysis of the source ensure that you discover who the creator was and investigate their background when they lived in what perspective they had on the historical events you're focusing upon once you know enough about

the creator of the source you can argue that a source is reliable based upon any of the following information that the creator of the source was personally present at the event or that the creator of the source has a highly-educated perspective on the topic such as a university professor alternatively that the source has been fact checked and subsequently approved by its audience such as an academic journal but what if you find that a source is unreliable when using information from sources to prove your argument you need to be able to use sources that are reliable

if you have found a source which you think is unreliable the best advice would be not to use that source however if the source is true relevant to your topic that you cannot use another try and use a different evaluation skill to argue for why you are using it rather than simply saying that the source is unreliable but if you have to how do you establish unreliability based on what you have discovered in your analysis of the source you can raise doubts about the reliability of a source based upon any of the following firstly that

the creator of the source was not present at the time of the event for example though writing hundreds of years after it occurred or that the creator of the source is not sufficiently educated enough about the topic for example they have no formal education in history alternatively you have discovered so much biased language in the source that you believe it undermines its credibility for example an online blog post finally it is clear that the purpose of the source was to entertain rather than simply give an opinion or focus on the facts about the topic now

that you know how to evaluate a source for reliability let's look at some examples to solidify your learning our first example is about one of the most famous and controversial kings of England Richard the third who lived between AD 1450 to and 1485 King Richard was so famous that Shakespeare himself wrote a play about his life and death where the king is portrayed as an extremely evil character but how reliable is Shakespeare as a historical source about Richard the third let's look at what our analysis of Shakespeare tells us firstly Shakespeare wrote the play about

Richard the third over a hundred years after the King's death so Shakespeare was not an eyewitness of the events secondly and most importantly Shakespeare wrote the play about Richard primarily to entertain an audience rather than to present historical fact as a result Shakespeare clearly presents a biased version of Richard's life in order to make him a great villain in his story rather than trying to be historically accurate therefore we can easily conclude that Shakespeare is a very unreliable source about the life of Richard the third our second example is about a specific aspect of ancient

culture the Roman army if you are researching Rome's ancient military you'll quickly encounter books on the topic by an author called Adrian Goldsworthy he has many titles dedicated to Roman society military and significant historical personalities from the era including Julius Caesar and Augustus but how reliable is Goldsworthy as a historical source about the Roman army let's look at what our analysis of goals really tells us Goldsworthy studied both ancient and modern history at Oxford University and received a PhD in ancient history his thesis was specifically on the Roman army between 100 BC and AD 200

furthermore he is taught history at many universities around the world as well as writing many books as is clear from this information Goldsworthy is a world renowned academic about ancient Roman military matters therefore we can easily conclude that Goldsworthy is an extremely reliable source about the ancient Roman military now you have a better understanding of reliability of sources I hope that you feel more confident in your studies if you need further explanations examples and advice head over to history skills comm and I'll see you next time you