What’s Evidence?

Chapter 1, Lesson 2
• Historians ask questions based on what
they have found from the past.

How did events change people’s lives?

How were people affected by war?

• To know the answers, they look for

evidence.

• Evidence: is something that shows proof or

an indication that something is true. Ex.
from objects, scraps of pottery, or
document materials.

• Historians use the evidence to interpret

(tell) what happened in the past.
 SOURCES

Primary Secondary

• first hand piece of evidence • created after an event

• Written or created by people • created by people who were

who saw an event not part of the event

• letters, government records, • biographies, textbooks

or art work in a place
• based on primary sources
• A source must be trustworthy and reliable in its facts to form an opinion
that historians interpret.

• Sometimes point of view is expressed as a bias - unreasoned, emotional

judgement about people and events based on the thoughts and feelings
of the historian. This is not professional.

Sometimes, historians look at 1 evidence and draw two or more

different conclusions.

What is historiography?

It is the study of historical interpretations.

Historiographers study or examine the evidences and say whether they

are reliable or not.

After the examination, a historians draw a conclusion.

 What do historians do?
1. Historians gather evidences through sources.

2. They should study the evidence and form an

interpretation (idea on what happened).

3. These evidences must be examined by

historiographers.

4. A conclusion is done in the end. That gets

recorded in books.