In Eicher’s “Primary sources: Handle with care-but DO handle,” primary sources were discussed, along with their validity. Eicher starts off in a library setting where he happens upon a primary source of Abraham Lincoln and discusses how you can’t just assume all primary sources are 100% truth. It discusses how you should read multiple sources on an event and piece together the truth, because every person recalls a situation differently. The article also defines primary sources as, “original records, created in real time,” and offers some places to find them.
I have previously heard about primary sources in high school when we were first learning how to format bibliographies. However, I usually assumed that they were a lot more reliable than researched essays on the time period. This essay showed how to read multiple sources to try and piece together the actual events, so know I know to be cautious and not gullible.
This reading is relevant to a class on information and research because you never want to assume everything that’s read is true. It offers suggestions on what to think about when researching such as, does the writer either trying to make one side look better, or do they have a personal motive in writing this article. The article also lists some websites to find documents on the internet, which may be helpful in research of all kinds not only for this class, but for others too.
As a student, I have witnessed this in research when I was writing an essay on free will. Different authors of various blogs and essays on the internet often differed in their definition of free will depending on something happening in their personal or business life or how they see themselves as free willed. I had to research an array of sources in order to define free will as I had decided was the actuality.
This relates to what I am studying in management, because in both cases it talks about honestly and dishonesty in people’s perspectives. In both it is important to be educated, use your head, and decide which information will show what actually happened.
