How historians learn about the past

Hey everyone in this blog post you will read how historians learn about the past. All historians use the historical method. The historical method has five main steps:

1)   They gather different sources and information, they state whether they are:

a.    Primary

b.    Secondary

2)   They categorize the sources they have found, the sources can be:

a.    Written

b.    Non – written

3)   Historians evaluate their sources by questioning them using the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, why) and then they evaluate wheater they are:

a.    Accurate

b.    Valid

c.    Reliable

4)   Historians then interpret their information, though each historian interprets it in a different way.

5)   Last thing they do is sharing what they have found, their info and their theories.

The 4^th step, when historians interpret their information, can change because each historian have come up to a different theory. For example the Stonehenge in the U.K. has different theories based up on it. One; it was a place a religious place, a place of worship. Two; the American astronomer Gerald Hawkins had a theory that it was a place where people from that time would use it as a calendar. So as you can see we can’t tell unless scientists will make a time machine!

So as you can see the Historical Method is a very efficient method used in humanities, very similar to that; there is the scientific method, which is used in science.

Hope you learned something new!