Historiography

Historiography

• the study of how history is studied and interpreted

Document sources

academic approaches to source documents

• OPVL
  • International Baccalaureate (IB) terminology

O	Origin	primary or secondary source? authentic and reliable?
P	Purpose	why was the source created? what was the authors purpose
V	Value	how / why this source is used to understand history
L	Limit	problems with value, reliability, authenticity of source

• see:
  • Using OPVL with Documents Guide (edublogs.misd.net)
  • How to evaluate a source - the OPVL method (historygeographyassignmenthelp.weebly.com)
• HIPPO

Academic sources

• when academics write about history, these are not sources so much as interpretations and evaluations of other sources.
• that is what a book on "history" does:
  • it evaluates events, people, places, and sources
  • it interprets them
  • it synthesizes them into a presentable format
• limitations on academic sources
  • academics have their own point of view and may process historical information according to it
  • academics can pick and choose their own sources in order to confirm their preconceived biases on historical events and actors
  • academics may have a specialty that biases or limits their interpretation of history

Micro history

Ancient World Historians

External Links: Ancient historiography from livius.org