Source Enquiry Skills reliability Aims To understand sources

Source Enquiry Skills: reliability Aims: • To understand sources are not always reliable • To explain the factors affecting the reliability of a source • To evaluate the reliability of a source.

Reliability Before you use any source you need to evaluate its reliability by considering certain points. These include content and selection of the source, its origins, intentions and nature, as well as the language used. (For more detail see the power point comparing the value of sources)

Reliability Biased sources: • The source is likely to reflect the opinion of who made it. • This does not automatically make the source unreliable! • If you say a source is biased – how has this affected the account? • You must back this up with evidence from the source – loaded language, exaggerations, inaccurate facts

summary The reliability of a source is affected by a range of different factors but very few sources are totally reliable or totally unreliable. In the examination you need to decide how far a source is reliable and to be able to show you your judgement.

See the power point on cross referencing for exam question. In the exam it is most likely that the question that tests your understanding of reliability will require you to cross reference 2/3 sources to make a judgement.