Historical Document Analysis

The historian must study a number of documents when trying to reconstruct the past. The analysis of these documents, called historical sources, helps them better understand certain realities. These sources are very useful in understanding the past, regardless of whether they are texts, objects or images.

There are different kinds of sources:

• material sources (objects made by humans): a boat, money, shoes, pottery, etc.;

• figurative sources: engravings, sculptures, drawings, caricatures, etc.;

• written sources: various written texts on different materials (paper, stone, papyrus, etc.);

• more recent audiovisual sources: music, sound, video, etc.

These documents have not been edited by historians, who use them as the basis for historical science. Using the historical method, the historian can find knowledge in these documents. They can then compare the different sources with each other, to confirm or reject different hypotheses.

A historian is a bit of a detective, always seeking to put the document or source they are studying into context. In order to adequately analyze a historical document, the historian needs to determine the historical context in which a document was produced, along with information about its author(s).

Historians are able to analyze documents, explain why they were produced and situate them in the appropriate historical period or event.

There are many, varied documents that are useful when studying history: research texts, newspaper or magazine articles, iconographic documents, audiovisual documents, etc. The historical method is the approach used to analyze all of them.

To be sure to thoroughly understand the context of the document you are analyzing, it is important to underline the historical information. Historical details include dates, the specific name of the event, names of known people, paraphrasing to describe a known person, citing a century, an era, etc.

This information can often be found in titles, subtitles, headings and introductory paragraphs. It’s important to read the entire text carefully in order to locate all of the important markers.

More relevant information is generally located in the title and in the sections containing illustrations as well as tables and diagrams. Locating dates is especially important. Understanding the nature of the information in the documents is necessary to organize your comments and conclusions and to make comparisons between the different components of the document.