Practice question · Multiple choice
Why is purposeless detail often the most trustworthy part of a document?
Hints
- What does a distortion cost, and what does it buy?
- If the detail serves nothing, why is it there?
Show the 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.
Practise Source Criticism in Practice
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Source Criticism in Practice
- Complete the practice.
- Put the questions of source criticism in their working order.
- Sort each situation: strong corroboration or illusory corroboration?
- Two sources diverge exactly where their interests diverge. What follows?
- Four independent chronicles agree on the size of an army. How much does the agreement add?
- Source criticism is the preliminary stage completed before the historical argument begins.
- What makes a historical argument honest?
- Why is admitting what the evidence cannot settle a strength?