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Credibility


How credible or believable is the source? Consider: 

• 
  Credentials: academic background, institutional affiliation, or previously
  published work. 
• 
  Arguments: Are arguments for the author's point of view logical and well
  reasoned? 
• 
  Documentation: Are facts and arguments supported by references to existing
  scholarly literature by reputable authors? 

A source may have excellent credentials and yet be of limited value. In
some cases, a source with less impressive credentials may turn out to be
highly valuable. 

Bias




• 
  Does the source seem to have a hidden agenda, or rigidly narrow point of
  view?
  
    
• 
  Does the source distort other points of view, or dismiss them out of hand?
  
   
• 
  Does the source accept advertising? If so, does the advertising appear
  to bias the information?
• 
  Is there an conflict of interest? Does the source stand to profit financially
  from a particular point of view? 

Although financial motivations can cause information to be biased, keep
in mind that many corporate sites are excellent sources of free, valuable
information. Just remember to look at the information in context. 

Engaging in historical inquiry, in order to develop an understanding of the broad picture of the past, is a cyclical process that begins with the asking of guiding historical questions. These questions are investigated by locating and analyzing traces of the past - historical sources. It is vital to recognize that these records and relics, primary and secondary historical sources, are:







• leftover remains and traces from the past, and that we do not have access to every single record or relic from the past;
• products of very different times and contexts from today, and we must make every effort to try to understand the people, places and times that produced these sources; and
• not always developed to serve as intentional evidence of the past, but they can still be analyzed in an attempt to draw credible and worthwhile inferences and claims about the past to help answer historical questions (Lee, 2005, p. 58).







The systematic and sophisticated process of analyzing these historical sources in the light of guiding questions results in historical evidence. This historical evidence, which at times can often be complex and contradictory, is then used to construct credible claims/narratives about the past, or in other word, historical interpretations, that seek to provide answers to the guiding historical questions. These interpretations often open up new avenues for the development of further historical questions and mysteries to be explored.

Lamentably, the teaching and learning of history as an officially sanctioned, neatly packaged chronicle of facts, people, and events, too often continues to be the experience of current students.

Teaching students to engage in the doing of history, Levstik (1996) suggests, involves a "shift from an emphasis on a 'story well told' (or, the story as told in the textbook), to an emphasis on 'sources well scrutinized'....[Where students] pose questions, collect and analyze sources, struggle with issues of significance, and ultimately build their own historical interpretations" (p. 394). While Barton (1998) contends that it is important to see a student's abilities to comprehend history and think historically as "a set of skills educators can nurture, not an ability whose development they must wait for or whose absence they must lament" (p. 80), Bain (2000) correctly acknowledges that it is the teacher who, after reading the literature, is the one left to "design activities that engage student in using such thinking in the classroom" (p. 334).