NCEA Level 3 History

## What counts as evidence Evidence in history comes from sources, and a source is anything a person made or left behind that tells us about the past. In a New Zealand history course the sources are usually documents such as letters, diaries, petitions, official reports and newspaper articles, but they also include speeches, cartoons, photographs, posters, maps, graphs, statistics and passages from textbooks. A source is not evidence by itself. It becomes evidence once a historian asks it a question and works out what it can and cannot answer. The skills a historian uses on a source are close reading, comprehension and extracting meaning. Close reading means reading every part of the source, including its caption, its date, its title and any small print, because the details are often where the argument sits. Comprehension means being sure of what the source literally says, in your own words, before you say anything about what it means. Extracting meaning means working from what is written or drawn to what it shows about the people who made it and the time they lived in. ## Primary and secondary sources A **primary source** was made at the time of the event, or close to it, by someone who lived through it or took part. A letter written by a soldier in a trench, a petition signed in 1893 and a photograph taken during a protest are primary sources. A **secondary source** was made later by someone who was not there and who usually drew on other sources, such as a textbook, a…