Good reading is about asking questions of your sources. Keep the following in mind when reading primary sources. Even if you believe you can't arrive at the answers, imagining possible answers will aid your comprehension. Reading primary sources requires that you use your historical imagination. This process is all about your willingness and ability to ask questions of the material, imagine possible answers, and explain your reasoning.

Evaluating primary source texts: I've developed an acronym that may help guide your evaluation of primary source texts: MAP.

Motives and goals of the author

Argument and strategy s/he uses to achieve those goals

Presuppositions and values (in the text and our own)

Motives

1. Who is the author and what is her/his place in society?  Do a WWW search on the author and provide a bit of relevant biograhpical information.

2. Why do you think s/he  wrote it?  What may be at stake for the author in this text? What evidence in the text supports your inference?

1. Summarize the content of the piece.  What type of writing does it appear to be, e.g., factual/descriptive report, persuasive argumentation to convince to a point of view, etc.?   [Of course, it may be a combination of types of writing.]

2. Does the author have a thesis? What -- in one sentence -- is that thesis?

3. What rhetorical/literary techniques does the author use to achieve her/his purpose?  [What evidence, appeals, arguments, etc. are used to achieve purpose?

4. Who is the likely intended audience of the piece? How might this influence the author’s strategy and techniques? Cite a specific example or two.

5. Provide at least one example where the author seems to be refuting a position never clearly stated. Explain what you think this position may be in detail, and why you think it.

6. Do you think the author is credible and reliable? [This is not the same thing as "do you agree with the author's position," but is an attempt to get you to analyze the extent to which the author in a position to give a reliable/credible version of events or ideas presented. 

1. What presumptions and preconceptions [views/positions/beliefs which are merely assumed, but not explicitly argued] does the author seem to embrace and which underlie the piece? Be specific.

2. How do the ideas and values reflected in the source differ from the ideas and values common in our age? Offer two specific examples.

3. What presumptions and preconceptions do we as readers bring to this text? For instance, what portions of the text might we find objectionable, but which the author’s contemporaries might have found quite acceptable. Cite at least one specific example.