“Who controls the present, controls the past who controls the

past, controls the future”

- GEORGE ORWELL
 READINGS IN THE
PHILIPPINE HISTORY
 WHAT IS YOUR OWN
DEFINITION OF HISTORY?

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 HISTORY
Etymologically, HISTORY from Greek word
Historia meaning “Knowledge acquired by
investigation”

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 HISTORY
On the other side, events occurring before written record are considered
prehistoric; an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the
memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation and interpretation
of information about these events. Hence, scholars who write about history
are called historians.

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 HISTORY
It is a narration of events which has happened among mankind, including an
account in the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great changes
which have affected the political and social condition of the human race.

- John Anderson, 1876. A Manual of General History

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 history
The word history is referred usually for accounts of
phenomena, specially human affairs in chronological order.

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There are theories constructed by historians in
investigating history;
a. Factual History
b. Speculative History

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 Factual history
This presents readers the plain and basic information, the events that
took place (what), the time and date with which the event happened
(when), the place with which the event took place (where), and the
people that are involved (who).

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Speculative history
It goes beyond facts because it is concerned about the reasons for
which events happened (why), and the way they happened (how).

It tries to speculate on the cause and effect of an event.

- Cantal, Cardinal et.al.

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 The practice of historical writing is called
historiography, the traditional method in doing
historical research that focuses on gathering of
documents from different libraries and archives to
form a pool of evidence needed in making
descriptive or analytical narrative.

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Sources and Historical Data

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 Historical sources
Sources – an object from the past or testimony concerning the past on
which historians depend in order to create their own depiction of the
past.

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 Primary and secondary
sources
• What are they?
• Advantages and disadvantages of using PRIMARY OR
SECONDARY SOURCES
• CATEGORIES

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 PRIMARY sources

Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to

what actually happened during a historical event or period of time.

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 PRIMARY sources

✣ Diaries and Journals

✣ Autobiographies – a story you wrote about yourself.
✣ Sound Recordings
✣ Interviews

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 SECONDARY sources

Secondary sources are something written about a primary source.

They are written after the fact – that is, at a latter date.
Second-hand information

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SECONDARY sources

✣ Articles in newspapers
✣ Magazines
✣ Books
✣ Articles found that evaluate or criticize someone else’s original
research

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WHY USE PRIMARY SOURCES?
Advantage
Primary sources provide a window into the past- unfiltered access to the
record of artistic, social, scientific, and political thought and achievement
during the specific period under study, produced by people who lived during
that period.

DIsAdvantages
They are often incomplete and have little context.
In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and
facts to questioning and making inferences about the material.

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WHY USE secondary SOURCES?
Advantages
They can provide analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the
original information.

They are best for uncovering background or historical information about a

topic and broadening your understanding of a topic by exposing you to others’
perspectives, interpretations, and conclusions.

It allows the readers to get expert views of events and often bring together
multiple primary sources relevance to the subject matter.

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 disadvantages
Their reliability and validity are open to questions, often they do not provide
exact information.

They do not represent first-hand knowledge of a subject of event.

There are countless books, journals, magazine articles and webpages that
attempt to interpret the past and finding good secondary source can be an
issue.

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 Written Sources of History

1. Narrative or Literary
2. Diplomatic or Juridical
3. Social Documents

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 NARRATIVE SOURCES

Narrative sources or literary sources tell a story or

message. They are not limited to fictional sources
(which can be sources of information for
contemporary attitudes) but include diaries, films,
biographies, leading philosophical works, and
scientific works.

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 DIPLOMATIC SOURCES

It is this kind of sources that professional

historians once treated as purest, “best” source.
Example: legal document

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 SOCIAL DOCUMENT

These are information pertaining to economic,

social, political, or judicial significance.
Examples: government reports, municipal
accounts, property registers, records of census

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WHAT IS HISTORICAL CRITICISM?

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In order for a source to be used as an evidence in
history, basic matters about its form and content
must be settled.

1. External Criticism
2. Internal Criticism

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 External Criticism

✣ The problem of authenticity

✣ To spot fabricated, forged, fake documents
✣ To distinguish a hoax or misinterpretation

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 Test of Authenticity
1. Determine the date of the document to see whether they are
anachronistic
e.g.: Pencils did not exist before the 16th century.

2. Determine the author

e.g.: handwriting, signature, and seal

3. Anachronistic style
e.g.: idiom, ortography, punctuation

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4. Anachronistic reference to events
e.g.: too early, too late, too remote

5. Provenance of custody
e.g.: determines its genuineness

6. Semantics – determining the meaning of a text or word

7. Hermeneutics – principles of interpretation of ambiguous

words

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What is internal criticism?

✣ The problem of credibility

✣ Relevant particulars in the documents – is it credible?

✣ Verisimilar – as close as what really happened from a critical

examination of best available sources.

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Tests of Credibility

✣ Identification of the Author

e.g.: to determine his reliability: mental processes, personal attitudes

✣ Determination of the approximate date

e.g.: handwriting, signature, seal

✣ Ability to tell the truth

e.g.: nearness to the event, competence of witness, degree of attention

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