To interpret a source, ask three questions: what does it say, who made it and why, and what can it not tell me. Then keep your findings in three boxes: established fact, the source’s viewpoint and later interpretation.
This lesson follows connecting a depth topic to its chronology and builds on evidence and source interpretation.
Why do fact, viewpoint and interpretation need separating?
A letter from a soldier is real evidence of what that soldier wrote and felt. It is not automatic proof of what happened to every soldier. A historian’s summary is a reasoned account, but it is not the same thing as a record made at the time.
When you keep the boxes apart, your answer sounds careful and your claims can be defended.
The method in four steps
- Provenance: author, date, audience, type of source.
- Content: the specific details, quoted briefly.
- Purpose and viewpoint: what the author wanted the reader to think or do.
- Limits: what the source leaves out, and what you would check against.
Worked example
The three extracts below are invented for practice. They are not real documents.
Source A (invented practice extract). Letter from a private soldier to his family, winter 1915: “The trench floor is a foot deep in water. We bail with biscuit tins. I tell you this so you will not think I am complaining, only that you may know.”
Source B (invented practice extract). Report by a staff officer to headquarters, winter 1915: “Drainage work continues. Men’s morale remains good. Equipment shortages are being addressed.”
Source C (invented practice extract). From a modern textbook: “Flooded trenches and cold were a regular hardship in the first winters, though conditions differed between sectors and over time.”
Question: How useful is Source A for studying conditions at the front in winter 1915?
Provenance: a private letter from someone who was there, written to family, so he had no reason to report to superiors.
Content: specific physical detail, water a foot deep and bailing with tins.
Purpose and viewpoint: he wants his family to understand, and he softens his tone. His viewpoint is personal.
Limits: one man, one location, one moment. It cannot show that every sector was flooded.
Cross-check: Source C, an interpretation, agrees that flooding was a regular hardship but says conditions differed. Source B is silent about water and stresses morale, which suits its purpose of reassuring headquarters.
Conclusion: Source A is useful for what daily hardship felt like to one soldier and for specific detail, but limited as proof of all conditions.
The mistake to watch for
Mistaken answer: “Source A is useful because it proves the trenches were flooded everywhere.”
The word “proves” and the word “everywhere” go beyond a single letter. The correction is to say what the source shows about one place and one writer, and to name what you would need in order to generalise.
Check yourself
1. In Source B, which words show a possible purpose of reassurance?
Show answer
“Morale remains good” and “are being addressed”. Both reassure headquarters and do not give concrete detail of hardship.
2. Label each as fact, source viewpoint or interpretation: (a) “The trench floor is a foot deep in water.” (b) “Conditions differed between sectors.” (c) A letter was written in winter 1915.
Show answer
(a) Source viewpoint: one writer’s report, which needs checking. (b) Interpretation: a later historian’s reasoned summary. (c) Established fact within this exercise: the date and form of the source.
3. Why is a private letter to family not automatically more reliable than an official report?
Show answer
Both have a purpose and a limited view. The letter may soften or leave out what would worry the family. The report may leave out what would worry headquarters.
Where this leads next
Next, support a claim about a documented development, using evidence like this to make a defensible point. For wider practice, use the integrated set.
Reading sources carefully is a skill that improves with a teacher’s questions. Our online one-to-one History tuition can work through source sets that match your own syllabus.