Marks are lost on single words. A student knows the evidence but labels it a fact, or describes a change when the question asks for a cause. This glossary gives each term a plain meaning, a small example and the word it is most often mixed up with.
The examples are invented or drawn from ordinary life, so they teach the term without claiming anything about your syllabus. Confirm your own core option and depth study with the study route guide.
Terms for sources and evidence
Source. An item that survives from the past: a letter, a map, a photograph, a tax ledger. Example: a shipping list from a harbour office. Confused with evidence. See evidence and source interpretation.
Evidence. The part of a source you use to support a claim. Example: a shipping list shows 40 ships entering in one year and 25 in the next, which is evidence that traffic fell. Confused with source, because the same source is evidence only for a claim it can support.
Primary and secondary. A primary source comes from the time studied. A secondary source is written later, usually by a historian using other sources. Example: a diary is primary, and a textbook chapter is secondary. Confused with “reliable and unreliable”.
Provenance. Who produced the source, when, where and for whom. Example: a pamphlet printed by a trade association in the year of a dispute. Confused with content, since provenance is about the source, not what it says.
Inference. A conclusion you draw that the source does not state directly. Example: a notice banning night fishing suggests that night fishing had been happening. Confused with description, which only repeats what is written.
Reliability and usefulness. Reliability asks whether you can trust what the source says. Usefulness asks whether it helps with this particular question. Example: a one-sided speech is weak as a description, yet useful for showing what the speaker wanted people to believe. Confused with each other.
Bias and propaganda. Bias is a slant in how something is presented. Propaganda is material produced to influence opinion, usually on purpose. Example: a poster praising a policy. Confused with “false”, because a biased source can contain true details.
Corroboration. Supporting one source with another that independently agrees. Example: a ship’s log and a port ledger record the same arrival date. Confused with repetition, since two sources copying each other do not corroborate.
Terms for time and context
Chronology. The order of events in time. Example: a ruling came after the protest, not before it. Confused with causation, because coming first does not make something a cause. See chronology and historical context.
Context. The surrounding circumstances that help explain why something was said or done. Example: a price rise announced in a famine year reads differently from one announced in a boom. Confused with background detail that has no link to the question.
Anachronism. Applying ideas or words from a later time to an earlier one. Example: describing a trader in a distant century as a “tourist”. Confused with hindsight.
Hindsight. Judging people by what you know happened next. Example: saying officials “should have known” a bridge would fail. Confused with analysis. See causation and supported explanation.
Terms for explanation and judgement
Cause and consequence. A cause helps bring about an event. A consequence follows from it. Example: a lost harvest may be a cause of migration, and empty villages a consequence. Confused with each other when students swap before and after.
Long-term cause and trigger. A long-term cause builds conditions over time. A trigger is the event that sets things off. Example: years of rising debt, then one failed loan. Confused with “the main cause”, because the trigger is not always the most important.
Change and continuity. Change is what became different. Continuity is what stayed the same. Example: the town built a new railway station, while market day stayed on the same weekday. Confused with each other when students list only changes. See change, continuity and comparison.
Significance. How much something mattered, to whom and for how long. Example: a law may matter greatly to farmers and go unnoticed by fishers. Confused with size or fame.
Fact, viewpoint and interpretation. A fact is something the record shows. A viewpoint is what a source’s author claims from their position. An interpretation is a conclusion drawn from evidence, often by a later historian. Example: the recorded tax rate is fact, a merchant’s complaint is viewpoint, and a historian’s argument is interpretation. Confused with each other, which is the main cause of vague answers. See the subject guide.
How do I use this list?
Pick three terms you mixed up in your last answer. Write one sentence for each, using your own route’s topic. Check the sentence against the meaning above.
Then use the source-analysis self-check on one source. If you would like a teacher to hear you use the terms, read about our online one-to-one History tuition. The original practice page offers exercises with explained answers.