ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Different Kinds of Evidence Videos 5 videos
In this video, learn exactly what a primary source is and isn't.
In this video learn how to read all of those pesky primary source documents your teacher keeps making you read.
Analyzing Primary Sources: Reading Documents 692 Views
Share It!
Description:
In this video learn how to read all of those pesky primary source documents your teacher keeps making you read.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you analyzing primary sources reading documents why do written
- 00:10
tex make good primary sources when we think of primary
- 00:15
resources we almost always think of written text first right
- 00:18
Someone says like oh you know what's a primary document
- 00:21
he's think oh a diary or a letter someone wrote
Full Transcript
- 00:25
the reason that we think of them first because there's
- 00:27
a ton of them and that is one of the
- 00:28
reasons why they make great primary sources because there are
- 00:32
a lot of them available you're easy to find you
- 00:34
can search for key words exactly We have access to
- 00:37
weigh more letters written in the sixteenth century than we
- 00:40
do say audio files recorded on someone's mp three player
- 00:44
in the sixteenth century Another reason they're great is because
- 00:49
they provide a ton of detail Usually when people are
- 00:51
writing you know they can explain themselves there's not as
- 00:55
much murkiness you know as opposed to maybe an image
- 00:58
where no one has said you see this little icon
- 01:00
here that's what this means when someone's writing they're more
- 01:03
likely to explain themselves They're also as you mentioned just
- 01:06
accessible whether something you're reading something on hard copy or
- 01:10
on the internet the words are still the same But
- 01:13
if you do get to see a scanned copy of
- 01:15
something written in a different culture a different time period
- 01:18
you also get to learn a lot about that language
- 01:21
How was it written What did their cursive look like
- 01:23
then How if things changed and evolved there's a ton
- 01:27
more a ton more reasons But you know britain techs
- 01:30
are awesome and kind of really easy to digest in
- 01:32
terms of primary sources What are the limitations of written
- 01:36
texas primary resource Can't really verify many primary sources but
- 01:43
the number one reason why why written texts are hard
- 01:46
to use primary sources is because of this issue of
- 01:47
bias Whoever's writing them had an opinion So yes that
- 01:51
person who wrote the diary during the civil war might
- 01:54
be telling us very cool details and being very explicit
- 01:58
about things that actually happened to civil war that we
- 02:00
otherwise we have no idea They also just might be
- 02:03
making it up way All make stuff our diaries on
- 02:06
dh Then of course there's the issue that you know
- 02:08
in united states most people can read and have access
- 02:11
To the internet and can see these written documents But
- 02:14
you know not everyone everywhere can read so you know
- 02:17
having written primary sources doesn't allow people who can't read
- 02:20
period or who just can't read the language it was
- 02:22
written and you know if i'm studying you know something
- 02:25
written that was britain and like aramaic i have no
- 02:28
idea what it says If i'm looking at a painting
- 02:31
that was done by someone during that same time here
- 02:33
in the same culture i might get more out of
- 02:36
it because i can you know read the images Sure
- 02:38
i remember with with most pro baseball hall of fame
- 02:43
guys they actually videotape there signing of the baseballs So
- 02:48
you have a verification for that That signature on the
- 02:51
baseball really is whoever it is saying exactly and like
- 02:55
you know paul the apostle couldn't do that when he
- 02:57
was wearing exactly why do we consider written texts first
- 03:04
when looking for primary sources What bonus insight do you
- 03:08
get from written sources What are the limitations of written
- 03:11
sources How does literacy and language affect our ability to 00:03:15.675 --> [endTime] use written sources
Related Videos
The gods and heroes battle it out with monsters in the best of mythology.
Today we aren't looking for the most virtuous person, or most likeable, but rather the most disturbing. Will it be Echo, the nymph who is doomed to...
This dude decapitated a creature with snakes for hair and married a beautiful maiden that he saved from a sea monster. Let's see how many of you ca...
Would you like to be immortal? We expected as much. But how about ifyou were ugly and your mother tossed you out of your home, giving you a limp fo...