Types of historical sources

Historians can get his sources, primary or secondary, from the following:
• Archival Material
Manuscripts and archives are primary sources, including business and personal
correspondence, diaries and journals, legal and financial documents, photographs, maps,
architectural drawings, objects, oral histories, computer tapes, and video and audio
cassettes. Some archival materials are published and available in print or online.
• Government Documents
Government documents provide evidence of activities, functions, and policies at all
government levels. For research that relates to the workings of government, government
documents are primary sources.
These documents include hearings and debates of legislative bodies; the official text of
laws, regulations and treaties; records of government expenditures and finances; and
statistical compilations of economic, demographic, and scientific data.
• Serials
Journals, magazines, and newspapers are serial publications that are
published on an ongoing basis.
Many scholarly journals in the sciences and social sciences include primary
source articles where the authors report on research they have undertaken.
Consequently, these papers may use the first person ("We observed…"). These
articles usually follow a standard format with sections like "Methods,"
"Results," and "Conclusion."
Serials may also include book reviews, editorials, and review articles. Review
articles summarize research on a particular topic, but they do not present any
new findings; therefore, they are considered secondary sources. Their
bibliographies, however, can be used to identify primary sources.
Books
• Most books are secondary sources, where authors reference
primary source materials and add their own analysis. “The First
Filipino” by Leon Ma. Guerrero is a biography of Jose Rizal. If
you are researching Jose Rizal, this book would be a secondary
source because the author is offering his views about the hero.
Books can also function as primary sources. For example, Jose
Rizal’s own letters and essays would be primary sources.
• Visual and Audio Materials
Visual materials such as maps, photographs, prints, graphic arts,
and original art forms can provide insights into how people viewed
and/or were viewed the world in which they existed.
Films, videos, TV programs, and digital recordings can be primary
sources. Documentaries, feature films, and TV news broadcasts
can provide insights into the fantasies, biases, political attitudes,
and material culture of the times in which they were created.
Radio broadcast recordings, oral histories, and the recorded
music of a particular era can also serve as primary source
material
 Historical Criticism

• The historian’s role in writing history, to reiterate, is to provide

meanings to facts that he gathered from primary sources (facts from
manuscripts, documents) or those that have been gathered by
archaeologists or anthropologists (artifacts). He can only make
conclusions and generalizations based on them. It is therefore his
duty to check on the authenticity of the sources that are presented to
him to be used as basis in writing history. Sources have to undergo
doubting and therefore should be critically tested for validity.
• There are two kinds of criticisms that a historian can use in the
process; these are External and Internal Criticisms
 A. External Criticism

• The ‘External Criticism’ covers the physical examinations of

sources like documents, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, maps,
inscriptions and monuments. In original documents it includes
looking at the paper and ink used whether or not it is within the
same circa as the content of the work. Oftentimes its more
difficult to establish the authenticity of manuscripts and records
rather than document simply because the printed document
have already been authenticated by the writer.
ELEMENTS OF EXTERNAL CRITICISM :
• a. Authorship. The name of the author of the document usually provides credence in the
establishment of validity of a certain document. The author’s name in itself can provided
for the test of authenticity. In cases of anonymous writings when the exact name of the
author is not known then the office that holds the record should also be taken into
consideration. For example, if we are studying population records and we use
documents from civil registrar’s office then that will lead to the consideration that the
documents are authentic.
• b. Date and place of publication. The date of the document including the time and place
of publication should be properly analyzed in order to establish its authenticity. Modern
day documents and publication have their date and place of publication usually printed
at the back of the title page. However, for manuscripts there are usually no date and
place of publications indicated. In such cases, the historian should look for dates
mentioned within the manuscript or cross check with other records. Sometimes an
analysis of the language used or the date of birth and death of the author can also be
used as basis for the establishment of its true date.
• c. Textual errors. The historian should always be in the lookout for errors
in the text of documents and manuscripts. There are two kinds of errors in
documents unintentional or intentional. Unintentional errors are mistakes
that are caused by typist or scribes usually in spelling, omitted words or
phrases. Intentional error are often made when there is an effort to modify
or supplement existing records or original manuscript for personal
intention or interest of the record keeper or editor. In such cases, efforts
should be made by the historian to get the original document and compare
or cross check with other related records or documents.
Sometimes, the style of writing of the author can also be used to
authenticate the originality of the document. If the style of writing does not
match the author’s style of writing then the document is dubious.
• d. Meanings of words used. The meaning of words used usually
changes from generation to generation, therefore the historian
have to interpret the words used based on the time when the
document was made. Also, there are instances when words
mean differently in different places. In this case, the historian
have to take into consideration the place and culture when the
document was made. He must be very careful in understanding
the terms, if not any misinterpretation will lead to historical
misunderstandings.
 B. Internal Criticism
• Positive criticism refers to understanding of both literal and real meaning of words. A
historian therefore must be able to analyze and interpret the contents of documents in their
real meaning. Document contains the idea of the person who wrote or made the evidences,
therefore they should be understood within that context. Historians should refrain from
making their own conclusions so as not to convey their own interpretation rather than the
true meaning of the content.
• One important characteristic that a historian should possess is the capacity to doubt all
documents and facts when these are not yet subjected to authentication. The historian
should question the motive of the writer and question the accuracy of the document.
Likewise, the historian should verify if the writer of the document has a first had
information or had experience the phenomena he wrote and how long the time elapsed
between the occurrence of the event and the time the document was written. In cases of
contradicting records, the historian should corroborate the facts from other claims or
documents. The truthfulness or veracity of the document should be established
Debunking “ Sa Aking Mga Kabata through Historical criticism
• 1. Jose Rizal’s “ Sa Aking Mga Kabata”
• According to Dr. Nancy Kimuell Gabriel on her tesis
masterado “Timawa: Kahulugan, Kasaysayan at Kabuluhan sa
Lipunang Pilipino,” on UP Diliman, 2001the poem shows
falseness. Historian Ambeth Ocampo,National artist of the
Philippines and writer Virgilio S. Almario and others have
debunked Rizal's traditional authorship of the poem based on
the following.
• a.) AUTHORSHIP
• No manuscript for Sa Aking Mga Kabatà written in Rizal's handwriting
exists. The poem supposedly wrote in 1869 where he was only 8 years old
then.
• A young revolutionary? Another questionable aspect of this poem is the
precocious social commentary of its alleged young author. The poem
contains some very mature insights for an eight-year-old boy – the “stinky
fish” line notwithstanding. There are some bold statements that are just
as much about freedom and nationhood as they are about language.
• The language is too precocious even for an eight-year-old prodigy like
Jose Rizal
b.)DATE AND PLACE OF PUBLICATION
• The poem was first published in 1906, a decade after his death,
in a book authored by the poet Hermenigildo Cruz.
• Rizal had 35 years to publish or assert authorship. He did not.
The poem was published posthumously.
c. TEXTUAL ERRORS
• In Rizal’s childhood they spelled words with a “c” rather than
“k.” Further, the word “kalayaan” (freedom) is used twice.(No
manuscript EXIST)
• d.)MEANINGS OF WORDS USED
• Kalayaan was not a common word in 1869 and there is irrefutable evidence that Jose Rizal himself
did not learn the word until he was 25 years old. Rizal first encountered the word atleast by 1872
the years after the execution of GOMBURZA.
• The historian Zeus Salazar, however, refuted the claims of Andrade and Yanga in his essay Ang
Kartilya ni Emilio Jacinto in 1999. He maintained that the word laya and its various conjugations
“were already a part of Tagalog vocabulary at that time [and] therefore, could not have been
invented by anybody.” However, he also wrote, “Laya/calayaan was not yet needed in writing before
1864 and even later, especially since timawa/catimaoan was still widely used back then as meaning
‘free/freedom.’” Evidently, Rizal had not encountered the word kalayaan until he saw it in Marcelo
H. del Pilar’s Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa [Love for the Native Land], which was his Tagalog
translation of Rizal’s own Spanish essay, Amor Patrio. Naturally, if Rizal didn’t know the word
kalayaan when he was 25 years old, he could not have written a poem in which the word appears
twice when he was only eight years old. Whichever case is true, young Jose’s alleged use of the
word kalayaan in 1869 is no less curious. Moreover, even if kalayaan was a term known to some
people in Bulakan, the fact that it did not appear in Florante at Laura, the poem that Rizal
consulted, is telling because it was written by the most famous poet of Bulakan, Francisco
(Balagtas) Baltazar. We know this because of a letter he wrote to his brother Paciano in 1886. Jose
had written a Tagalog translation of Friedrich Schiller’s German play Wilhelm Tell and he wanted
Paciano to review it. He explained that he found it difficult to translate some of the concepts in the
play.