Primary Source essay I-Robert Moeller
A 2pages, double spaced, times new roman, font size 12, primary source essay on any one document from Robert G. Moeller’s “The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with Documents.”
A primary source analysis should address several questions:
– When was the source produced and for what purpose (i.e. context)?
– Who is the author? What’s his or her position regarding the issue at hand? You can’t always know exactly who produced something, but you can tease out clues as to the perspective of the author(s). Be sensitive to that bias and interpret the source with that in mind.
– Who was the intended audience? (E.g., newspaper readers, a rally audience, housewives) This will affect the piece’s tone and the language the author uses.
– How influential was the source at the time? (i.e. did it make a ripple or go unnoticed? Do you see the same ideas crop up in other sources from the time?)
– Can we see meanings in the source that the author may not have intended? Learn to read ‘against the grain’ for the author’s underlying assumptions – these tell us a lot about that writer and the times.
