Prelim Reviewer: History, Historical Criticisms, and Primary Source Analysis

Flashcards testing core terminology and concepts covering history definitions, primary/secondary/tertiary sources, external and internal historical criticisms, bias analysis, contextual analysis, and historical significance criteria (NAME).

History

The study and interpretation by a historian on the data and other sources of past human activity, people, societies, and civilizations leading to the present day.

Historia

Greek word meaning inquiry, which denotes asking questions or investigation of the past.

Historian

An expert or student of history, especially of a particular period, geographical region, or social phenomenon.

Historical Sources

Tangible remains of the past, including objects or testimonies concerning the past on which historians depend to create their depiction of the past.

Primary Source

A testimony of an individual who was a participant in or a direct witness to an event being described, or a document/physical object written or created during the time under study.

Written Sources

A category of primary sources consisting of written or printed materials produced in the past, such as travelogues, transcriptions of speeches, journals, newspapers like La Solidaridad, and personal letters.

Numerical Records

A category of primary sources defined as any type of numerical data in printed or handwritten form.

Oral Statements

A category of primary sources comprising any form of statement made orally by an eyewitness, preserved through audio, video, or transcripts.

Relics

Objects whose physical or visual characteristics provide information about the past, such as artifacts, ruins, and fossils.

Images (as Primary Sources)

Visual primary sources such as photographs, posters, paintings, drawings, cartoons, and maps.

Secondary Sources

Sources that interpret and analyze primary sources, prepared by an individual who was not a direct witness to the event.

Tertiary Sources

Sources that provide third-hand information by reporting ideas and details from secondary sources, such as encyclopedias, almanacs, Wikipedia, YouTube, and dictionaries.

Historiography

The study of how history was written, by whom, and why it was recorded as such; also referred to as the 'history of history.'

Historical Method

The core protocol historians use for handling sources, providing ground rules for researching and writing academic research or professional history.

Historical Criticism

Also known as the historical-critical method; a branch of criticism that investigates the origin of a text or source in order to understand the word behind the text.

External Criticism

The first test historians use to determine source validity, which investigates the document's form and tests its authenticity against forgery or misrepresentation.

Internal Criticism

A deeper or more intense study applied after external criticism to examine the accuracy, content, substance, author's perspective, and credibility of a document.

Authorial Intent

What the author intended the text to mean in his or her time and place.

Anachronism

Something that is out of time or order; a person, thing, or idea placed in the wrong time.

Idiom

An expression, word, or phrase with a figurative meaning conventionally understood by native speakers.

Orthography

A set of conventions for writing a language, including spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.

Provenance or Custody

The place of origin or earliest known history of a document, tracing the roots of a source.

Semantics

The linguistic study of meaning, which determines the meaning of the text and words of a source.

Hermeneutics

The theory and methodology of interpretation used to determine ambiguities, possible word meanings, and irony in historical sources.

Ambiguity

A word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways.

Verisimilar

Being as close as possible to what really happened, which internal criticism examines in a document.

Corroboration

A principle of criticism that relies on the independent testimony of two or more reliable sources agreeing on the same fact.

Bias

When a source's information is unbalanced or prejudiced, either strongly positive or strongly negative.

Extreme Positive Bias

A type of bias where a source presents too much positive information and little negative information, such as Gunita ng Himagsikan by Emilio Aguinaldo.

Extreme Negative Bias

A type of bias where a source contains too much negative information and little positive information, such as Filipino Grievances Against General Leonard Wood.

Silent Bias

A type of bias where a source intentionally leaves out important information known from other sources, such as the Declaration of the Philippine Independence omitting information about the Katipunan.

Obvious Errors

A type of bias where a source provides information that is known to be false based on alternative sources.

Historical Perspective

The point of view from which a creator describes an event, analyzed through their background such as nationality, social status, political persuasion, cultural background, religion, and education.

Historical Context

The awareness that historical sources were created at times that were very different from our own.

Historical Empathy

Understanding the past without judging it by modern standards.

Cause

A person or thing that makes something happen.

Consequence

A direct result of a cause.

Historical Significance

What modern people consider important from the past, based on a conscious evaluation.

NAME

An acronym used to determine the historical significance of an event, standing for Novelty, Applicability, Memory, and Effect.

Novelty (in NAME)

The criterion of historical significance applied when something is new or has never been seen before.

Applicability (in NAME)

The criterion of historical significance applied when a past event or situation is similar to the present.

Memory (in NAME)

The criterion of historical significance based on how an event has been remembered over time.

Effect (in NAME)

The criterion of historical significance based on how people have been affected by an event.