Using sources
History · GCSE · The School
Utility, not just bias
Every source is biased; saying so earns nothing. The question is what a source is USEFUL FOR. A wartime propaganda poster is nearly useless for casualty figures and extremely useful for what the government wanted people to believe. Bias is not a flaw to be deducted — it is evidence about the person who produced it.
Provenance
NOP: Nature (what kind of source), Origin (who made it, when, where), Purpose (why). A private diary and a public speech by the same person on the same day differ because their purpose differs. Quote the provenance in your answer rather than describing the content back to the examiner.
The answer structure
For each source: what it shows, what its provenance adds, what it cannot tell you, and then a judgement on usefulness FOR THE STATED ENQUIRY. That last phrase matters — usefulness is always relative to a question, never absolute, and answers that forget the question lose the top band.
A 1915 British recruitment poster showing a German soldier as a monster. QUESTION A: "How useful is this for finding out what German soldiers were like?" Almost useless — it is propaganda. QUESTION B: "How useful is this for finding out how the British government tried to recruit soldiers?" Extremely useful, and the bias IS the evidence. Same source, opposite answers. Always ask: useful for what?