These web pages were designed and researched by stage 4 History and D&T students in years 7 & 8 at The Rock Central School. In essence they were designed to show you how to deconstruct a source so it is useful in a historical investigation.

Once you have figured out your topic, you need to begin with a research question or investigation. For Example, students who chose women’s liberation in the 1960s brainstormed an investigation and came up with: what did they do so women in 2007 could feel more powerful? You will find the investigative questions on the home page of each website.

Your best helpers for finding sources that can answer your investigative questions will be teachers within your school; they can direct you to the exact source to read or study, or at least find someone who can. All the sources used are either included on the web pages marked “source one” for example, or the students have included the book, author, page number and source they have used at the top of each source page.

Most research in History is done through finding sources or evidence. A source can be a written document, an artefact, a painting or photo. A source is anything that can give you some kind of information about people or events of the past. One of the easiest ways to extract information from a source is using the OPACRU method – Audience, Purpose, Origin, Reliability and Usefulness.

ORIGIN: From where did the source come? When was it created or written? Who composed the source?

PURPOSE: Was the source composed by an individual from history who wanted to persuade your opinion about an issue, entertain you or inform you? (Give examples for your answer)

AUDIENCE: For who was the source composed? (age, gender, race, class).

CONTENT: This is where you explain and/or describe what is in the source.

RELIABILITY: Is the author or composer a reliable source for facts? Is there any bias (personal opinions) within the source that can affect or alter somebody else’s history? (For instance, Aboriginal History has been written primarily from a biased white perspective that can affect how we see these minority groups of people).

USEFULNESS: What facts does the source give that are useful for your investigation? (Just because a source is biased doesn’t mean it isn’t useful as it can show you how one group might be misled about another).

An essay begins with an introduction. This should state who, what when, where your research is. It should not go into examples or source details.

In the following paragraphs you could use each source as the main topic in the paragraph to help you structure your essay. Each paragraph should refer to the source in some detail and explain why the source is good for the research.

The conclusion offers a summary or revision of what the paragraphs have stated then gives a general sentence about how all sources have argued a point or informed about the topic.

You can use the sources to research a topic. If the sources are not included, students have indicated which texts and which pages can be located.