How to analyse a source's purpose transcript

[Music] when analyzing a historical source is important to realize that every source was made for a particular reason usually knowing the purpose force creation will help you evaluate its relevance and reliability to your historical argument sometimes the purpose of a historical source is also referred to as the sources motive for this video even though it will use the term purpose throughout we will also be discussing the motives behind why a source was created so what is a sources purpose the purpose of a source is the reason it was originally made the sources creator thought it was worth the time and effort to create it and it was usually so that it could be used for something it is therefore worth taking some time to determine what the creator wanted to achieve by creating the historical source that you're looking at the purpose of a source could be as simple as someone crafting an ancient ceramic pot in order to store grain for their community or it could be as complex as a musician in the 1960s riding a pop song in order to convince listeners to be critical of the government's role in the Vietnam War so how do you discover a sources purpose on some rare occasions a historical source will clearly state why it was created if this is the case you can simply read your historical source carefully and discover its purpose however my sources do not provide such a clear reason for their creation so you are required to do a bit more work to discover a sources purpose the first step in determining a sources purpose is to understand its historical context this includes knowing who created it and what historical events were occurring at the time of the sources creation in order to know this information you need to conduct some background research find out about the creator what skills do they have what culture were they from and what perspective did they have of the events next find what important historical events were occurring at the time the source was created was there a significant social event or battle or environmental event that could have prompted the creator to make the source after that try to ascertain who the intended audience of the source was this might help you to understand why the source uses certain words or mentions particular people once you have discovered information about the creator the historical context and the intent audience you can usually identify why the source was originally made it can also be helpful to know what motivated the creator at a particular point in time depending upon the type of source there are some common purposes for their creation for example academic journals are usually created to provide academic insight regarding a particular topic books are created to inform or persuade the audience about the topic magazines are created to inform or entertain its audience newspapers are created for the purpose of informing or persuading the audience about an event photographs are taken to record the details of an event person or location speeches are given to persuade the audience to agree with the speaker and finally textbooks are written for the purpose of informing and educating its audience about a topic so now that you know how to determine a sources purpose let's look at some examples to help demonstrate how to do this our first example comes from the ancient Greek historian called Herodotus whose only surviving work is a written history which is simply called the history's determining the purpose of this source is actually quite straightforward as it clearly states his motives for writing this book in the opening paragraph Herodotus explicitly states that he wrote the histories so that neither the actions of people may be forgotten by the passage of time nor the great and marvelous works which have been made by both Greeks and Persians may not lose their fame and especially that the reasons why they went to war with one another may be remembered therefore we can confidently say that the purpose of Herodotus histories was to record the significant people and events of the past and to explain the causes of the greco-persian wars however finding out a sources purpose is not always as straightforward as Herodotus's especially when you are dealing with a non written source such sources had purposes as well as the next example show chateau de chambord is a monumental chateau in the Loire Valley in France there's a massive structure if you do some background research you'll discover a lot of fascinating information you'll discover that the crater was a French king called Francis the first who commissioned its construction between 1519 and 1547 if you look at the historical context it wasn't built as a typical car instead it appears to be built for visual impact rather than practical defense it had no defensive walls towers or even practical moats an attacker could easily enter the chateau through its many ground-level windows and doors an indication of as decorative impact is in the fact that it had over 400 rooms 200 fireplaces and 80 staircases also all features of the building were intentionally oversized to improve its visual impact this meant that the massive rooms with their huge windows and high ceilings were almost impossible to heat the maid long-term stays at the Chateau very uncomfortable you will also discover that the King spent only six or seven years there during his life despite the massive cost involved in its construction when he did stay there he did only one of two things when hunting for sport and hosted powerful foreign rulers the most famous visitor was Francis's long-term enemy the holy roman emperor charles v it can be deduced therefore that the intended audience of the building was not just the french king himself but rulers and dignitaries from other countries so what was the purpose of the very expensive and very impractical chateau de chambord there are two potential answers the first purpose was as a short-term accommodation for royal hunting trips the second purpose seems to be as a way of showing off the French king's enormous wealth and power to other nations particularly during state visits now you have a better understanding of what purpose means in regards to historical sources I hope that you feel more confident in your studies if you need further explanations examples in advice head on over to history skills calm and I'll see you next time you