Evaluating your sources

Evaluating primary sources may be quite different than what you would be used to doing for academic sources.  These sources by their very nature will not be peer-reviewed or published by academic presses. 

Here are some questions to ask of primary sources to help in establishing their value to your research project.  

• Who is the author or creator and what does that tell you about the source?  If the author is unknown what are the implications?

• Where and when did the source come from?

• Who is the intended audience? 

• What are the biases and perspectives from which this record was created? What challenges arise because of the biases?  What advantages are there to having this particular perspective?

• What was the purpose of the source when it was created?

• Do you have the original record or a copy?  If not the original, what information may have been lost?

• Has the source been altered in some way that may change its meaning?

• Does your interpretation of the source fit with other evidence and other scholarly interpretations?

• Does the source help you to answer your research question?  What other questions can be answered using this source?

It is also important to look at the context of the archival records.  Why were some records created and kept and not others?  What evidence may be missing because of these choices?