GATHERING THE EVIDENCE -HISTORICAL SOURCES Caribbean History TOPIC: GATHERING THE EVIDENCE -HISTORICAL SOURCES The most frequently-used ways of gathering information/evidence in history are: PRIMARY SOURCES Primary Sources – first hand evidence, for example, diaries, letters, official records. These are obtainable in museums, archives and some libraries. Material that contains firsthand accounts of events and that was created during the same period of time or later recalled by an eyewitness. … Primary sources emphasize the lack of intermediaries between the thing or events being studied and reports of those things or events based on the belief that firsthand accounts are more accurate. Primary source documents comprise the “raw data” of history. By using primary source documents, you are not reading a scholar’s interpretation of past events or conditions, you are interpreting the data for yourself. Examples of primary sources include letters and diaries; government, church, and business records; oral histories; photographs, motion pictures, and videos; maps and land records; and blueprints." SECONDARY SOURCES Secondary Sources – second hand evidence, for example, books, newspapers, and magazine articles. These sources are more widely used in history and are easily available in most libraries. In contrast, a secondary source of information is one that was created later by someone who did not experience first-hand or participate in the events or conditions you’re researching. For the purposes of a historical research project, secondary sources are generally scholarly books and articles. For secondary sources, often the best sources are those that have been published most recently. If you use a secondary source that was published decades ago, it is important to know what subsequent scholars have written on the topic and what criticism they have made about the earlier work or its approach to the topic. 1 Historical interpretation is the process by which we describe, analyze, evaluate, and create an explanation of past events. We base our interpretation on primary [firsthand] and secondary [scholarly] historical sources. BIBLIOGRAPHY What is historical interpretation? https://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/slatta/hi216/hist_interp.htm Caribbean History Syllabus https://www.cxc.org/SiteAssets/syllabusses/CSEC/CSEC_Caribbean_History.pdf 2
