# Source Criticism in Practice

History I · Historical Sources · https://tryals.app/learn/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice

## Source Criticism Basics

**Source criticism** is the argument itself, not a preliminary stage. Every source has a purpose and a direction of bias. 

| Question | What It Examines | Why It Matters |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Genre** | Chronicle, charter, letter, report | Sets conventions and distortions |
| **Distance** | Eyewitness vs. late compiler | Alters reliability |
| **Audience** | Private vs. public dispatch | Shapes content |

**Unwitting testimony** is what a source takes for granted—often its best part. **Silence** requires deciding if it is absence, filtering, or physics.

**Pitfall:** Counting dependent sources. Three sources agreeing are worthless if all copied the same lost ancestor. Independence requires separate causal paths.

## Weighing and Writing

**Testimony against interest** is the core rule. When a source admits something inconvenient (a tax exemption, a defeat), that report is unusually strong. 

| Conflict Pattern | What It Means |
| --- | --- |
| **Diverge on interests** | The divergence is the finding |
| **Agree on mundane, differ on significant** | Normal shape of political events |
| **Purposeless detail** | Often the most trustworthy part |

**Honest writing** distinguishes "the record shows" from "it is likely" and "I suspect." 

**Pitfall:** Filling gaps with fluency. Say what the evidence cannot settle rather than hiding weak foundations.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 13 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Complete the practice.

**Answer:** Corroboration counts only when the sources are **independent** — three chronicles copying one lost ancestor multiply the copy count, not the evidence. Testimony that runs against a source’s own **interest** is unusually strong, because nobody invents inconvenient facts about themselves. And when sources contradict, the pattern of disagreement is itself a **finding**.

**Why:** Independent, interest, finding. Three habits that turn a pile of partial, self-interested, contradictory documents into an argument a reader can check, which is the whole job.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/complete-the-practice

### 2. Put the questions of source criticism in their working order.

**Answer:**

1. What is it? Establish the genre and its conventions
2. Who made it, when, and how close to the event?
3. Why was it made, what is its purpose?
4. For whom was it made, who is the audience?
5. What does it take for granted?
6. What is missing, and why?

**Why:** Genre first, because it sets the expected distortions; purpose next, because it gives the bias direction. The last two are where the source stops arguing and starts telling you things.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/put-the-questions-of-source-criticism-in-their-working-order

### 3. Sort each situation: **strong corroboration** or **illusory corroboration**?

**Answer:**

- Strong corroboration: A coin hoard and a tax record independently implying the same debasement, An eyewitness letter and unrelated archaeology agreeing on a destruction
- Illusory corroboration: Three chronicles all copying one lost source, Four newspapers reprinting one wire despatch

**Why:** Independence is about separate causal paths to the event. Copies multiply the count, not the evidence, and the hostile-plus-friendly agreement is the strongest shape there is, because no shared interest explains it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/sort-each-situation-strong-corroboration-or-illusory-corroboration

### 4. Two sources diverge exactly where their interests diverge. What follows?

A. The divergence is the finding, you have located the dispute
B. The more detailed source should be preferred
C. Both should be discarded as hopelessly biased
D. The earlier source is automatically the reliable one

**Answer:** A. The divergence is the finding, you have located the dispute

**Why:** Contradiction is a finding, not an obstacle. When the disagreement maps onto the interests, you have not lost the event, you have located what was actually at stake in it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/two-sources-diverge-exactly-where-their-interests-diverge-what

### 5. Four independent chronicles agree on the size of an army. How much does the agreement add?

A. Less than it appears if they share a source
B. A great deal, since independent agreement is the strongest form of corroboration
C. Nothing, since chronicle army figures are conventionally exaggerated
D. It confirms the figure, provided the chronicles were written in different regions

**Answer:** A. Less than it appears if they share a source

**Why:** Corroboration requires causal independence, and medieval chronicles copy each other constantly, so establishing filiation comes before counting agreements. Geographic separation does not settle it either, since a widely circulated annal reaches distant houses, which is why stemmatics is done first.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/four-independent-chronicles-agree-on-the-size-of-an-army-how-much

### 6. Why is purposeless detail often the most trustworthy part of a document?

A. It is expensive to invent and no purpose explains it
B. Scribes were forbidden to embellish factual details
C. Details are easier to cross-check than claims
D. It is usually added by a later, more neutral copyist

**Answer:** A. It is expensive to invent and no purpose explains it

**Why:** Invention is effortful and biases are economical, they distort what pays. A detail no interest explains has no reason to be there except that it happened.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/why-is-purposeless-detail-often-the-most-trustworthy-part-of-a

### 7. Source criticism is the preliminary stage completed before the historical argument begins.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** It _is_ the argument. Nobody ever has good sources, the case is built out of the weighing itself, not after it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/source-criticism-is-the-preliminary-stage-completed-before-the

### 8. What makes a historical argument honest?

A. Giving the reader enough to disagree with you
B. Distinguishing "the record shows" from "it is likely" from "I suspect"
C. Saying plainly what the evidence cannot settle
D. Presenting the strongest possible case without qualification

**Answer:** A. Giving the reader enough to disagree with you; B. Distinguishing "the record shows" from "it is likely" from "I suspect"; C. Saying plainly what the evidence cannot settle

**Why:** The measure is not confidence but whether a reader can see exactly where the argument would break. One that survives because its foundations were hidden is worth less than one that fails visibly.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/what-makes-a-historical-argument-honest

### 9. Why is admitting what the evidence cannot settle a strength?

A. It shows that the sources were insufficiently searched
B. It protects the historian from later criticism
C. Most of the past is unrecoverable, and saying so is honest
D. Journals require explicit statements of uncertainty

**Answer:** C. Most of the past is unrecoverable, and saying so is honest

**Why:** The alternative is filling the gap with fluency, which is how a discipline that always has an answer earns exactly the trust it deserves. Saying "we cannot know" is a finding, and it is often the hardest one to publish.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/source-criticism-in-practice/why-is-admitting-what-the-evidence-cannot-settle-a-strength