Source Types & Features
Letters, diaries, and official government dispatches created at the time of an event are classified as this type of evidence.
What is a Primary Source?
A source created long after an event occurs often suffers from this specific reliability issue regarding human memory.
What is Memory Lapse / Hindsight Bias
The specific group whose perspective was largely omitted or marginalized in 19th-century colonial newspapers.
ho are Māori (or Indigenous peoples / Women)?
What students must do when an AS91436 prompt asks them to "quote directly" or "refer to specific details" from the Resource Booklet.
What is using direct evidence / source attribution?
A biography or textbook written decades later analyzing 19th-century New Zealand history is classified as this type of evidence.
What is a Secondary Source?
Finding multiple independent sources that confirm the same facts or details is a process known by this term.
What is Corroboration
The term describing the specific historical background, environment, and circumstances surrounding the creation of a source.
What is Historical Context?
The term for a deliberate, one-sided presentation of information designed to influence an audience's political views or opinions.
What is Propaganda?
Even if a colonial newspaper report contains heavy bias, it remains highly useful to a historian for revealing this specific detail.
What are the attitudes, values, or prejudices of settlers at the time?
The analytical step required beyond simply summarizing a source to achieve an Excellence grade in 91436.
What is critically evaluating reliability, limitations, intent, and broader significance (cross-referencing sources and evaluating impact)?
An unspoken assumption, personal interest, or underlying preference held by an author that shapes how they record an event.
What is Bias
Why an official government land report from 1865 might be unreliable for determining whether Māori willingly sold a block of land.
What is Conflict of Interest / Crown Self-Interest (justifying confiscation/acquisition)?
The key difference between a source being invalid versus a source having limitations.
What is "a source can be heavily biased or incomplete (limitations) while still being a valuable reflection of its author's perspective (valid)"?