READINGS IN

PHILIPPINE
HISTORY
 HISTORY

Etymologically, HISTORY (from Greek

word Historia, meaning “Knowledge
acquired by investigation)
 HISTORY
•The word history is referred usually for
accounts of phenomena, especially
human affairs in chronological order.
THERE ARE THEORIES CONSTRUCTED BY
HISTORIANS IN INVESTIGATING HISTORY:

FACTUAL HISTORY SPECULATIVE HISTORY

FACTUAL HISTORY

Presents readers the plain and basic

information, the events that took place
(what), the time and date with which the
event happened (when), the place with
which the event took place, and the
people that were involved (who).
SPECULATIVE HISTORY

It goes beyond facts

because it is concerned It tries to speculate on
about the reasons for the cause and effect of an
which events happened event – (Cantal, Cardinal
(why), and the way they et.al)
happened (how).
The practice of historical writing is called
historiography, the traditional method in
doing historical research that focus on
gathering of documents from different
libraries and archives to form a pool of
evidence needed in making descriptive or
analytical narrative.
“Only a part of what was observed in the past
was remembered by those who observed it;
only a part of what was remembered was
recorded; only a part of what was recorded has
survived; only a part of what has survived has
come to the historian’s attention.”
- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History-
“Only a part of what is credible has been
grasped, and only a part of what has been
grasped can be expounded or narrated by
the historian.”
- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History-
HISTORICAL
SOURCES
SOURCES

• An object from the past

or testimony concerning
the past on which
historians depend in
order to create their own
depiction of that past.
PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY SOURCES

• What are they?

• Advantages and
Disadvantages of Using
Primary or Secondary
Sources
• Categories
PRIMARY • Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close
as possible to what happened during a historical event
SOURCES or time period.
• It is an original, “first-hand” or “eye-witness” account
offering an inside view.
• It contains new information (new at he time it was
created, that is) that has not been interpreted,
evaluated, paraphrased, or condensed.
• Such sources are usually created during or very close
to the time of the events they report on.
• The author of a primary source typically provides
direct impressions of events he or she is reporting on.
PRIMARY SOURCE – DIARIES AND JOURNALS

Example: Anne Frank was a teenager

during World War II. She kept a diary
or journal the years before she died in
a concentration camp. Her diary was
later published as the “Diary of Anne
Frank”.This is a primary source
PRIMARY SOURCE – AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

• An autobiography is when you write a

story or book about yourself.
• Example: Nelson Mandela wrote his
autobiography about events in his life called
“Long Walk to Freedom: The
Autobiography of Nelson Mandela.” This is
a primary document because he wrote his
firsthand experiences.
PRIMARY SOURCE – INTERVIEWS

• Oprah Winfrey's interview

with President Barak Obama in
November 2020 at Oprah
Conversation
PRIMARY SOURCE – LETTERS

• Abraham Lincoln’s letter to General

Sherman on December 26th 1864
congratulating Sherman on the capture of
the city of Savannah.

Source: Library of Congress

PRIMARY SOURCE – RAW DATA

• Measurements of Hurricane Sandy –

October 25, 2012

Source: NOAA.gov
PRIMARY SOURCE – OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

The United States Declaration of

Independence

Source: National Archives

PRIMARY SOURCE – LEGISLATION AND COURT
RECORDS

The 26th Amendment to the

Constitution guarantees the
Right to Vote for 18 years old.

Source: archives.gov
PRIMARY SOURCE – PHOTOGRAPHS

• An Image of Sunrise at PDA, Tigaon

Source: My Collections
PRIMARY SOURCE – JOURNAL ARTICLES

The New England Journal of

Medicine – reports the findings of
original research, and are written
by the researchers themselves

Source: nejrn.org
PRIMARY SOURCE – NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

An article from The Washington Post

describing the damage caused by Hurricane
Sandy

Source: washingtonpost.com
PRIMARY SOURCE – SPEECHES

JFK’s speech to the nation

about the Cuban Missile
Crisis, October 22, 1962

Source: jfklibrary.org
PRIMARY SOURCE – CREATIVE WORKS (NOVELS,
PLAYS, MUSIC, ART)

Paul McCartney’s original

handwritten lyrics to the Beatles
song “Hey Jude”

Source: news.bbc.co.uk
SECONDARY • A secondary source is something written about a
SOURCES primary source
• A secondary source provides “second hand”
information that has been digested, analyzed,
reworded, or interpreted.
• Secondary sources are often written well after the
events they report on and can put past information
into its historical context.
• Usually the author of a secondary source will have
studied the primary sources of a historical period or
event and will then interpret the “evidence” found in
these sources.
• Think about it like this… SECONDARY
• If I tell you something, I am the primary SOURCES
source. If you tell someone else what I
told you, you are the secondary source.
• Secondary source materials can be
articles in newspapers, magazines, books
or articles found that evaluate or criticize
someone else’s original research.
SECONDARY SOURCES - EXAMPLES
WHY USE PRIMARY SOURCES?

ADVANTAGES
❖Primary sources provide a window into the past – unfiltered access to the record of
artistic, social, scientific and political thought, and achievement during the specific period
under study, produced by people who lived during the period
❖these unique, often profoundly personal, documents and objects can give a very real
sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era.
WHY USE PRIMARY SOURCES?

DISADVANTAGES
❖Primary sources are often incomplete and have little context. Students must use prior
knowledge and work with multiple primary sources to find patterns
❖In analyzing primary source, students move from concrete observations and facts to
questioning and making inferences about the materials.
WHY USE SECONDARY SOURCES?

ADVANTAGES
❖Secondary sources can provide analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the
original information
❖Secondary sources are best for uncovering background or historical information about a
topic and broadening your understanding of a topic by exposing you to other’s
perspectives, interpretation, and conclusions
❖Allows the reader to get expert views of events and often bring together multiple
primary sources relevant to the subject matter
WHY USE SECONDARY SOURCES?

DISADVANTAGES
❖Their reliability and validity are open to question, and often they do not provide exact
information
❖They do not represent firsthand knowledge of a subject or event
❖There are countless books, journals, magazine articles and web pages that attempt to
interpret the past and finding good secondary sources can be an issue
HISTORICAL
CRITICISM
WHAT IS HISTORICAL CRITICISM?

❖In order for a source to be used as evidence in history,

basic matters about its form and content must be
settled
❖ External Criticism
❖ Internal Criticism
WHAT IS EXTERNAL CRITICISM?

▪ is the practice of verifying the authenticity

of evidence by examining its physical
characteristics; consistency with the
historical characteristic of the time when it
was produced; and the materials used for
the evidence.
▪ sometimes called as “lower criticism”
WHAT IS EXTERNAL CRITICISM?

▪ Examples of the things that will be examined when

conducting external criticism of a document include:
▪ the quality of the paper
▪ the type of the ink
▪ the language and words used in the material
WHAT IS EXTERNAL CRITICISM?

To spot fabricated, To distinguish a

The problem of
forged, faked hoax or
authenticity
documents misrepresentation
TESTS OF AUTHENTICITY

▪ Determine the date of the document to see whether they are

anachronistic (a chronological misplacing of persons, events, or
customs regarding each other)
e.g., pencils did not exist before the 16th Century
▪ Determine the author
e.g., handwriting, signature, seal
▪ Anachronistic style
e.g., idiom, orthography, punctuation
- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History-
TESTS OF AUTHENTICITY

▪ Anachronistic reference to events

e.g., too early, too late, too remote
▪ Provenance or custody
e.g., determines its genuineness
▪ Semantics – determining the meaning of a text or word
▪ Hermeneutics – principles of interpretation of ambiguous words)

- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History-

WHAT IS INTERNAL CRITICISM?

▪is the examination of the

truthfulness of the evidence.
▪sometimes called as “higher
criticism”
WHAT IS INTERNAL CRITICISM?

Verisimilar – as
Relevant particulars in close as what really
The problem of
the document – is it happened from critical
credibility
credible? examination of best
available sources

- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History-

TESTS OF CREDIBILITY

▪ Identification of the author

e.g., to determine his reliability; mental processes, ,personal attitudes
▪ Determination of the approximate date
e.g., handwriting, signature, seal
▪ Ability to tell the truth
e.g., nearness to the event, competence of witness, degree of
attention

- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History-

 Validating historical sources is
important because the use of unverified,
falsified, and untruthful historical sources
can lead to equally false conclusions.
Without thorough criticisms of historical
evidences, historical deceptions and lies
will be highly probable.
 The task of the historian is to look at the
available historical resources and select the most
relevant and meaningful for history and for the subject
matter that he is studying.
History, like other academic discipline, has come
a long way but still has a lot of remaining tasks to do. It
does not claim to render absolute and exact judgment
because as long as questions are continuously asked, and
as long as time unfolds, the study of history can never
be complete.
 The task of the historian is to
organize the past that is being created so
that it can offer lessons for nations, societies,
and civilization. It is the historian’s job to
seek for the meaning of recovering the past
to let the people see the continuing
relevance of provenance, memory,
remembering, and historical understanding
for both the present ad the future.
THANK YOU!
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GOD BE WITH YOU!