Posted: September 13th, 2017

The aim of the exercise is a critical source analysis.

The aim of the exercise is a critical source analysis.

This is not a research essay or an exercise where you need to do further research. We don’t want you to go and do more research to back up what you say. YOU DO HAVE TO

ANSWER THE FOCUS QUESTION. However, you do so by a very close reading of the sources – secondary and primary. *We want to see you use the primary source in

particular*.
So – choose 1 focus question from the first 6 weeks topics and answer that question by using the sources provided, keeping in mind that the aim is to demonstrate your

analysis, interrogation and utilisation of the sources – particularly the primary. I agree that this is challenging. It is more usual to have an essay question for

which you do research and then construct your response from that research. Indeed – you would probably be marked down for relying on the two secondaries provided for a

1500 word essay. This is not a research exercise, however. The purpose of this exercise is to get students thinking reflectively about sources.
So – the big question is – what is a critical source analysis? I would direct you to the link I provided on reading and using primary sources on the homepage under my

instructions for this exercise.
For secondary sources you might want to consider the following:
Argument – what is the core argument of the writer? Is there one key argument and several sub-themes?
Evidence – do they back up what they say? Is the evidence convincing?
Style/language – is the writing accessible?
Purpose – closely relates to argument. What fuels the author’s interest?
Provenance – that is, is the article part of a larger project or book, or is it a stand-alone academic article? Does it sit within a wider field of research and/or

historiography? Is it symptomatic of the period it was written in?
Is it convincing? If so, why? If not, why not?

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