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2-Page Reaction Paper History

This document discusses the importance of identifying credible and authentic primary and secondary sources when studying history. It explains that primary sources are directly from witnesses or artifacts from a historical event, while secondary sources are interpretations or analyses of primary sources. While secondary sources are more accessible, primary sources are more reliable. The document emphasizes evaluating sources to determine their authenticity and credibility, especially with the spread of misinformation online. It also stresses the importance of knowing the differences between authenticity and credibility when assessing information. Finally, it notes that understanding credible historical sources is crucial to learning from both the successes and failures of past generations.

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Chezie Vinna Nava
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395 views2 pages

2-Page Reaction Paper History

This document discusses the importance of identifying credible and authentic primary and secondary sources when studying history. It explains that primary sources are directly from witnesses or artifacts from a historical event, while secondary sources are interpretations or analyses of primary sources. While secondary sources are more accessible, primary sources are more reliable. The document emphasizes evaluating sources to determine their authenticity and credibility, especially with the spread of misinformation online. It also stresses the importance of knowing the differences between authenticity and credibility when assessing information. Finally, it notes that understanding credible historical sources is crucial to learning from both the successes and failures of past generations.

Uploaded by

Chezie Vinna Nava
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Unit 1: Understanding History using Primary and Secondary Sources

By CHEZIE VINNA M. NAVA

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

October 2020

Identifying credible and authentic primary sources and know how to evaluate their
provenance and determining the various repositories of historical sources

Studying history is not merely reading stories written by people and deeming it as the truth.
In order to study history, one should determine whether the sources of their readings are credible
and authentic. Students or even people who want to read about history should first identify from
what type of source the readings come from, whether it is primary or secondary.

Primary sources are directly from the witness of a certain historical event. It could be their
diary, essay, or autobiography. Primary sources are not just limited to the description of a human
witness, but also the pieces of information that a mute witness could provide. Mute witnesses are
pictures, videos, artifacts, and ecofacts that could help archeologists and anthropologists analyze
what could possibly took place during a certain era. Sources could also be the interpretation and
analyzation of people based on a primary source; These sources are called secondary sources.
Secondary sources may not be as reliable compared to primary sources since they are more
susceptible to biases, but secondary sources tend to be more accessible unlike in the case of
primary sources; Usually a permission or huge amount of money are needed to access primary
sources.

Evaluating the sources of the pieces of information is very essential, especially during the
present times where the spread of fake news is rampant. Since technology made it easier for
people to upload, share, and forward information to a large number of people, a lot of people tend
to not even assess whether the source of the information is reliable and credible. Modern
problems at least in the Philippines actually root from being misinformed about our own history;
Due to the spread of fake information regarding the events that took place during Martial Law and
the Marcos regime, a lot of people dismiss the fact the Marcos regime is full of anomalies, these
people are called Marcos apologists.

The difference between authenticity and credibility are still unclear for some people, they
may sound the same, but there is a huge difference between them. Authenticity measures the
originality of the source or information, while credibility measures the plausibility. Simple terms
like these should be understood by people, in order to properly evaluate the authenticity and
credibility of sources and pieces of information.

It is also important to determine the repositories containing the history of our country, to
know where to get pieces of information in case of conducting a research historically inclined and
stating a certain historical event for comparison and reference.

Knowing whether the historical source or information you are reading is credible and
authentic is very timely, due to that when studying about history one should not just learn from
the victories of the former generations, but also from their failures in order to avoid repeating their
mistakes.

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