BELO, JEFFERSON P.

READING IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

BSEE-4B ACTIVITY 2

GUIDE QUESTIONS:

1. Why are historical documents forged or misleading?

- The issue of forgery is central to many of the most important aspects of medieval
history. Some of the foundational documents relating to the medieval growth of the
papacy were forgeries that were not discovered until centuries later.

2. How do historians distinguish a hoax from a genuine document?

- The first key points historians want to check about a source is whether the source is
based on accurate knowledge and understanding. To do this, they might check
whether the author was there at the time, whether the author was involved in the
event, whether the author understood the overall context.

3. Why do garbled documents happen?

-  the problems of sources, knowledge, explanation, objectivity, choice of subject, and
the peculiar problems of contemporary history.

4. How do historians restore texts?

- Historians designed the method in a way that it takes sequences of damaged text
and predicts the missing characters using long-term context information.

5. Why is it essential to identify the author and the date of the document in
performing external criticism?
- In determining authorship, the tool of external criticism helps the researcher and
exegete to assess the author's name, affiliation.

6. What is a “particular”? How do historians examine and understand historical fact?

- Particular is of or relating to a single or specific person, thing, group, class, occasion,
etc., rather than to others or all; special rather than general.
- Historians search for clues about the past using both primary and secondary
sources.

7. What is interrogation hypothesis? Why is it essential in document analysis?

- the act of interrogating someone or something such as, a formal and systematic
questioning conducted a skilful interrogation of the witness.
- Document analysis is essential for understanding policy content across time and
geographies, documenting processes, triangulating with interviews and other
sources of data.
8. What are the four aspects of historical subjects? Why are they needed in
conducting internal criticism?
- Political, social, economic, scientific, technological, medical, cultural,
intellectual, religious and military developments are all part of history. Usually
professional historians specialize in a particular aspect of history.
- Internal criticism is applied to check the credibility of the document whether the
contents given in it are believable or not. 

9. If the author’s name and the date are unknown, how would a historian learn these
information?
-  historians aim to reconstruct a record of human activities and to achieve a more
profound understanding of them.

10. What is personal equation? How does it influence the ability and willingness of a
witness to give a dependable testimony?
- referred to the idea that every individual observer had an inherent bias when it came
to measurements and observations.
- the witness must be able to understand and respond to questions, and the witness
must demonstrate the moral capacity to tell the truth.

11. What are the four tests in determining the credibility of a historical evidence?
- Printed sources
- Archives
- Oral testimony
- Physical evidence

12. What factors influence the witness’s ability to tell the truth?
- Memory reconstruction
- Line-up issues
- Visual characteristics
- Anxiety and stress
- Obtaining legal representation

13. What conditions influence the witness’s willingness to tell the truth?
- a witness needs only the ability to recall what they have seen and heard, and be able
to communicate what they recall. 
- he witness must demonstrate the moral capacity to tell the truth.7
 ISSUES OF DISCOURSE

1. Could one make use of his knowledge and skills in evaluating the authenticity and
credibility of historical sources in evaluating fake news that are proliferating in
different kinds of media today? Why? How?
- Yes, Use the information you are given in the source, recognize and detect in the
source. Your own knowledge of the period of time should add to the source.
2. Can a historical document be reliable and not accurate, or accurate and not
reliable? Why?
- Historical records are no different. Some sources may be considered more reliable
than others, but every source is biased in some way. Because of this, historians read
skeptically and cross-check sources against other evidence.

3. Can you always rely on primary sources for accuracy? Can eyewitnesses make a
mistake? What about an eyewitness who records his or her recollections several
years after an event – will that make a difference? Sometimes people are very
biased in their account of an event or of another individual. How can you separate
opinion from fact in history?
- Primary sources are not always accurate. As careful and methodical genealogists
we must consider the possibility that there may be errors in a record. Eyewitnesses
can provide very compelling legal testimony, but rather than recording experiences
flawlessly, their memories are susceptible to a variety of errors and biases. They
can make errors in remembering specific details and can even remember whole
events that did not actually happen. Ask students to help define the difference
between a fact and an opinion. Be clear that facts are objective information that is
true for everyone, no matter how you look at it.

4. If a historian cannot find written primary sources, what other sources can he or
she look for? What do these types of sources tell us about the past? What do they
leave out?
- Popular historians often write history just using other books. Nothing necessarily
wrong with that, because they might bring together a whole lot of quite narrow works
into one broad one.

5. What can secondary sources provide that primary sources generally do not
include? What are the limitations of using secondary sources alone? What if you
only used primary sources? What makes every primary sources unique?
- A primary source gives you direct access to the subject of your research. Secondary
sources provide second-hand information and commentary from other researchers.

6. Do you believe that any reader of historical writing should critically evaluate the
material based on the following parameters? Why?
a. Who writes it?
- Yes, Knowing an author's background is a must for any reader. It is because every
writing piece comes out of the experiences.

b. With what agenda in mind?

- Writing is the foremost goal of history, since it is the medium through which the writer
communicates the sum of his or her historical knowledge.

c. What type of sources is used?

- Historical sources give us an in-depth understanding of things that have happened in
the past from the point of view of the people who lived through them.