HAPPY Document Analysis Strategy

Question 1

When and where was the sources produced? What was happening when the source was produced? What connections to other sources, or to earlier or later ares, can you make? What else do you know that will provide context that will help us understand this document?

Answer 1

Historical context

Question 2

Who is the author’s intended audience? How might this affect the reliability of the source?

Answer 2

Audience

Question 3

What is the author’s purpose or goal for creating this source? Why was this produced- to persuade, to inform, to serve as propaganda?

Answer 3

Purpose

Question 4

What do you know about the author and his or her background? What might have influenced the author? How might who the author was have affected his or her work?

Answer 4

Point of view

Question 5

What main idea is the source trying to convey? What does this source tell us as historians about the time period or event we are studying? Does the document reflect significant changes or a break with the past? Or does it suggest continuities; that is, does it suggest things have stayed the same? A little of both? Essentially, why is this document important?

Answer 5

(Y) Why, Significance