Understanding, Explaining, and Evaluating sources

1. Understanding, Explaining, and Evaluating sources

2. Understanding sources • If you can accurately summarize a source, then you understand the source • Summaries can be wrong! • Not a place for your analysis or interpretation

3. IF the Germans invade the US they will do it suddenly and attack NYC and NJ first. They will demand money and insult local inhabitants and hang kill those who don’t comply. They will then create an incident which justifies executing local leaders and then move to the next town. This is not fiction. This is what the Germans have done in Belgium and France.

4. Explaining importance • Comes after you understand the source • You must have knowledge of historical context to grasp importance

5. Explaining cont. • Every primary source is important, BUT some are more important than others • There are MANY UNimportantsecondary sources: • Common knowledge sources = generic • MOST history Internet sites • No analysis/historical argument = NOT important • New to you ≠ important (don’t be fooled!)

6. Evaluating sources • Evaluate = weigh strengths and weaknesses (i.e. value and limitation) • ALL important sources have both value and limitation • Must evaluate value and limitation as directly connected to purpose and origin • Important sources may not be valuable to your investigation

7. P – convince Americans that Germans need to be defeated; Americans must support the war effort • O - Prof. J.S.P. Tatlock, employed by the CPI under direction of George Creel, Chaucer specialist, Stanford Professor; published 1918; one of 750,000 copies distributed • V- the massive distribution, fearful narrative, and recruitment of a distinguished author shows the lengths to which the US gov’t went to support the war effort; shows the stereotype of Germans US gov’t is promoting • L – as a piece of propaganda we must keep in mind that this is not what actually happened; this is a story, not a first-hand account