Historical Skills: Source Analysis and Historiography

3 dot points across 3 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you construct a clear, sustained and evidence-based historical argument in an extended essay?

The skills of constructing extended historical arguments, including thesis, structure, evidence and addressing the question

A guide to the WACE Modern History essay skills strand, explaining how to plan and write extended responses with a clear thesis, sustained argument, specific evidence and engagement with historiography.

6 min answer →

How and why do historians interpret the past differently, and how should students use historiography?

The nature of historiography and historical interpretation, including why interpretations differ and how to use historians' views in analysis

A guide to the WACE Modern History historiography strand, explaining why historians interpret the past differently and how to use schools of interpretation and named historians in source analysis and essays.

6 min answer →

How do historians analyse and evaluate sources for meaning, perspective, reliability and usefulness?

The skills of source analysis and evaluation, including identifying origin, purpose, perspective, reliability and usefulness for a historical inquiry

A guide to the WACE Modern History source-analysis skills strand, explaining how to identify a source's origin, purpose and perspective and evaluate its reliability and usefulness for the external examination.

7 min answer →