Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each use of oral testimony: appropriate or inappropriate?
Groups: Appropriate use · Inappropriate use
- Recovering what people believed they were doing
- Determining an exact sequence of events unaided
- Reaching communities the archive never recorded
- Settling how many people were present from recall alone
- Establishing what an experience felt like
- Fixing the date of an event without cross-checking
Hints
- Never rely on testimony alone for checkable facts.
- For meaning and experience it is close to the only source.
Show the answer
Appropriate use: Establishing what an experience felt like, Recovering what people believed they were doing, Reaching communities the archive never recorded
Inappropriate use: Fixing the date of an event without cross-checking, Settling how many people were present from recall alone, Determining an exact sequence of events unaided
Why
Never testimony alone for the verifiable; testimony essentially alone for the meant. Cross-check the dates against paper, that is what paper is for.
Practise Oral History and Testimony
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
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