1 Department of History ‘Doing History ’Semester II 2020Primary Source Analysis Exercise (2,000 words) = 30% This assessment is designed to help you to evaluate primary source materials of differentkinds and to use them effectively in preparation for your research essay. The task is as follows: Explain and account for the strengths and limitations of at least two different types of primary sources for understanding an area of history.You may focus on a period, an event, a personality, or a movement,for example.Primary sources are broadly defined to include: images (works of art and photographs), government records, oral histories, books produced at the time, buildings, monuments, letters, diaries, memoirs, broadsheets, newspapers, music, minutes of meetings,and soforth. If in doubt–ask!Instructions
•Treat this as an essay like any other in which you 1)argue a number of points and in which you 2)provide references to your primary and secondary sources in the usual way
•Aim to choose at least two examples of each type of primary source under review. If you are working on newspapers you may decide to use items from different newspapers, or a number of items from the same newspaper. If you are working on diaries or memoirs, you may focus in more detail on a couple of examples or more broadly on several examples. The same principle applies whether you are working on letters, material objects, images, government documents, official reports and so forth.
•You are encouraged to refer to secondary sources that discuss the nature and usefulness of the types of primary sources under review.
2•You areencouraged to refer to secondary sources that deploy the kinds of primary sources,or even the same primary sources, towhich you are referring.
•If you are referring to material objects you may refer to exhibitions or galleries which have displayed the objects under review,or similar kinds of objects.So, for example,exhibition catalogues might be a useful source for you
Ensure your essay is double spaced.
•Provide generous margins
•Submit your assignment electronically via the portal (‘Second Assignment:Primary Source Analysis’) available under ‘Assignments’.Please note that the usual School of Humanities lateness penaltyapplies: two marks will be deducted per day (including weekends) for lateness. The assignment portal will remain open for seven days after the deadline, that is until 23.59 Friday 2 October.After that, your assignment will not be accepted unless you have applied for and been granted an extension via the Faculty Office.F
