Explain How to Analyze a Primary Source.

Final Project Guidelines: Global IIReminder about Primary Sources: Primary sources are sources of information (photos, art, newspaper articles, diaries, letters, government reports, speech transcripts, etc.) that were created during the historical period that you are studying. Just about anything that existed or was created during that time period can count as a primary source—even material objects, like clothing. Primary sources are valuable to historians because they provide a first-hand account of what life was like in the past. Why Read Primary Sources?Because, as you’ve hopefully already noticed in our primary source workshops, such first-hand accounts of life in the past provide us with windows into the past. This is as close as it gets to direct observation for historians trying to piece together the past. Historians rely on these various records of the past (text, visual, material) when crafting their own historical narratives. How to Analyze a Primary Source? Already in class, you’ve been asked to read a number of sources. As a result, you’ve already encountered world views and assumptions that are quite different from our own. You’ve encountered political ideologies or various spins of past events. And you’ve seen have different sources on the same topic can either support each other or conflict. The type of analysis work you need to do for the final project is very similar. Each source analysis you write (one per source), will need to have the following five sections below, and should be roughly 2 pages each: 1) Purpose: All sources have a purpose, in that all sources aim to communicate something. This can be explicit (say, in a political speech) or more implicit (like clothing styles). To complete this question, your response should address some of the following questions:
Who is the author and what is her or his place in society (explain why you are justified in thinking so)? What is at stake for the author in this text? 
What are they trying to accomplish by writing this text?Why do you think she or he wrote it? What evidence in the text tells you this? Does the author have a thesis/argument? What is that thesis/argument?Again, the source will dictate how precise you are able to be. For example, if you are analyzing a speech by Hitler, it’s pretty easy to determine who the author is. If you are analyzing an article by an anonymous person, you may have to look for clues to make educated guesses. For example, if you had an anonymous article that was published in Louisiana that was against the Haitian Revolution, you could logically conclude that the article was written by a white slave owner (or at least someone with a vested interest in slavery) who lives in the South. 2) Argument: Again, you might not able to answer each of the below questions for each source, but this section should address some of the following questions:How does the text make its case? What is its strategy for accomplishing its goal? How does it carry out this strategy? What is the intended audience of the text? How might this influence its rhetorical strategy? What arguments or concerns does the author respond to that are not clearly stated? (In other words, not all arguments are direct or explicit. Sometimes it is helpful to read between the lines)Do you think the author is credible and reliable?3) Presuppositions: This is about considering the assumptions and/or unconscious biases in the text, as well as being self-aware in terms of what your own biases might be. This section should address at least some of the following:How do the ideas and values in the source differ from the ideas and values of our age?
 
What presumptions and preconceptions do you as a reader bring to bear on this text? For instance, what portions of the text might you find objectionable, but which contemporaries might have found acceptable? How might the difference between our values and the values of the author influence the way you understand the text?Example: If you were analyzing a speech from an apartheid-era politician in South Africa, you might be able to find evidence in their speech that they believe races should be kept separate. A source from the 1700s will likely present assumptions about gender/sexuality/women/etc. very different then our own. Finding these types of assumptions in each source is what this section is about. 4) Epistemology: This is basically a fancy way of saying, how one knows what one knows. For example, Galileo’s epistemology in terms of astronomy was based on evidence he observed with his telescope—which was very different than the epistemology of the Catholic Church as the time. This section should answer:What kinds of information does this text tell you without knowing it’s telling you?How does this source evaluate truth? Or, what types of information (personal experience, religion, scientific experiments, news reports, etc.) does your source rely on?How well is the source’s