How to analyse a historical source

when studying history you'll be frequently asked to analyze historical sources however many people don't know what this means or how to do it in this video I'll explain what source analysis is give you a step-by-step guide to follow and show you some examples to help you out let's begin [Music] welcome back to another history skills video today we're looking at how to analyze historical sources source analysis is one of the most important skills you'll need to develop when studying the past and mastering it will help you achieve your best possible results so what is source

analysis source analysis is the ability to demonstrate a genuine understanding about why a particular historical source was made it was important to remember that all historical sources were created for a reason even though we usually read sources in class to help learn about the past almost no historical sources were originally made just to be read by students decades or centuries after they were created therefore we use source analysis to discover why a specific historical source came into existence including who originally made it who they initially wanted to read it plus more therefore source analysis involves

much more than just reading a historical source it also requires you to conduct background research to discover who the author was and find out what was happening at the time the source was made by the way you are not meant to automatically know all of this information most of the time you'll need to do some research about your source to successfully analyze it if you need help online archives and even Wikipedia can be helpful in conducting your background research to provide a complete analysis of your source there are six specific source analysis skills you need

to use they are information origin perspective context audience and motive an easy way to remember these six skills is to use the acronym IOP can I've actually created individual videos about each of these six skills they go into much greater depth about each one so if you're struggling with a specific skill you can find the links to each of the additional videos in the description section below in order to demonstrate a sufficient knowledge of the six announcer skills you need to be able to answer the following six questions one for each skill firstly what information

is stated in the source about the historical topic you're studying remember a source can either explicitly state information or implicitly mention something secondly what was the name of the person or people who created the source thirdly from what perspective was the source created fourthly when was the source created and what was happening at this time v who is the intended audience of the source and finally for what purpose was this source made sometimes you may not be able to answer all of these questions but you want to be able to complete as many as possible

once you've answered these six questions you are ready to write your full source analysis so how do you write a source analysis a source analysis is usually a short paragraph that demonstrates all of the knowledge that you have discovered about the historical source a simple source analysis can be written in just two sentences using the IOP cam acronym from before in the first sentence mention the IOP part of the acronym which is information origin and perspective for example this source is a personal letter that describes what trench warfare was like during World War 1 and

was written by John Smith and Australian soldier in your second sentence mention the cam part of the acronym that is context audience and motive for example Smith wrote the letter on the 26th of April 1915 the day after the Gallipoli landing to record his experience of the battle and was to be read by his family in Australia as you can see you can demonstrate significant knowledge of a source by writing an analysis paragraph like this of course you can use more than two sentences if you need to now that you know what source analysis is

and how to do it let's look at a full example to increase your confidence in the process the historical source we're going to analyze in this example is a very famous photograph from the Great Depression after doing some background research online we were able to go through the six elements of IOP km information the image shows a mother and her children who are suffering economic hardship as a result of the Great Depression origin the photograph was taken by someone called Dorothea Lange perspective after some background research we discovered that Dorothea Lange was an American photojournalist

context the photo was taken in March 1936 which was in the middle of the Great Depression in America audience Lane took the photograph as part of her job working for the federal government's resettlement administration however we also discovered that her photographs were intended to be published in newspapers for the general public to see motive the reason this photograph was taken was to raise public awareness of the economic toll of the depression and the need for a solution now that we have answered each of the six questions we can tie them all together and write a

two-sentence source analysis here is the result the photograph by the American photojournalist Dorothea Lange shows the economic struggles caused by the Great Depression on a specific mother and her children this image was taken in 1936 as part of a photographic campaign for the federal government's resettlement administration to raise public awareness through the publication of the photograph in newspapers across America now that you have a better understanding of what source analysis is I hope that you feel more confident in your studies if you need further explanations examples and advice head over to the history skills comm

website and I'll see you next time [Music] [Music]