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Hear from DVA's historian Emma Campbell about the difference between primary and secondary historical sources, when she finds them most helpful, and some credible Australian sources for military service history.
Transcript
Hello student historians and welcome to DVA’s Handy History Hint series. Throughout this series, you will discover the important work that historians perform and their top tips to help you examine historical events. Today we will meet Emma. She is an historian with Veterans’ Affairs who previously worked with the Australian War Memorial. We are so lucky to have Emma talk to us today about historical sources.
Can you tell us what are historical sources?
Historians use 2 different types of source material in our research. We use primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are firsthand accounts of an event or time period from people who were present. They provide original or new information and offer the most direct evidence of an event. A secondary source often takes the form of books or essays that analyse, interpret or evaluate an event. They describe or explain primary sources.
In your work as an historian, do you use mainly primary sources?
It varies. I certainly use both both primary and secondary sources. If I’m writing a short biography of a soldier from the First World War, for example, I would use primary sources, such as their war service record and letters or diaries that they wrote. If I had to write an essay that outlined what Australians did in the First World War, then I would use more secondary sources, but still draw on primary sources to provide individual experiences. I've heard about selecting credible sources.
What does that mean, and how do you know if the source is credible?
A credible source is one that you trust has given a reliable account of an event. You want to consider: Who has written it and why? Is there any bias in the way it's written? Are they trying to influence the reader? A document that uses persuasive language is most likely not a credible source. It's also important to know where to find credible sources. Looking at the first thing that comes up in a Google search isn’t enough. I recommend finding credible historical sources in a trusted archive or institution, such as the Anzac Portal, the National Archives of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, and state libraries.
So, I have found a credible primary source. Can I trust that it is just a factual account of the event?
Using just one source is not the best practice. There can be many different points of view about one event. It is always better to use 2 or more credible primary sources. Read each of the accounts, and compare and contrast them. Think about the motivation behind each of the sources and who the intended audience is.
Sometimes I’m not sure if the source is primary or secondary. Have you experienced this, and what did you do?
It can sometimes be difficult to work out if a source is primary or secondary. In these instances, I ask myself if the source was created by someone directly involved in the events, which would be primary, or by another researcher, which would be secondary.
Another question to ask is: Does the source provide original information? Or, is it summarising information from other sources? Knowing more about the background of the source is helpful to working out if it’s primary or secondary.
Now it’s time for Emma to count down her top 3 handy history hints.
Number 3: research both primary and secondary sources.
Primary sources are letters, photos, diaries and other firsthand accounts of an event or time period. Secondary sources are artworks and books and essays written about an event later on that analyse and interpret the event or time period.
Number 2: use more than one source.
You shouldn’t rely on just one person’s account of an event.
Number 1: Make sure the source is credible.
Think about who the author is and why they’ve written it. You need to trust that their account is faithful to the events. Thank you, Emma. It’s been wonderful having you here today. Good luck student historians, and thank you for watching.
