In this 5-page draft Analytical Essay on Primary Sources you will continue to analyze one primary source from the primary sources in one of the Discussion Boards in Weeks 2-4. The topics of those Discussion Boards are: Hammurabi’s Law Code, Zoroastrianism, Classical Greece, and China and Rome (Week 2), the Silk Road, the Abbasid Caliphate, the Song Dynasty, and Medieval European Towns (Week 3), and Empires of Western Africa and the Aztec Empire (Week 4). For your final Analytical Essay on Primary Sources you will deepen and extend your analysis of the single primary source you chose. You may not write on Cave Arts, Venus Figurines, Çatal Höyük, or Stick Charts for this assignment. To help you verify that you have chosen an eligible primary source, please review the list of eligible primary sources for this assignment a the link below.
You begin this assignment by reading or viewing the one primary source you chose and analyze its meaning by making notes on your answers to the questions below:
What kind of primary source is it?
Who is the author or creator (if known)?
Can you tell why was it written or created?
What is the primary source’s tone? What words and phrases (and/or scenes and visual perspectives) convey it?
What are the author’s or creator’s values and assumptions are? Is there visible bias? Explain your answers.
What information does it relate? Did the author or creator have first-hand knowledge of the subject or did s/he report what others saw and heard?
What issues does it address?
What is your overall assessment of the primary source and its usefulness/significance for the historical study of your topic?
You can only use sources from the course (required readings from the textbook and websites) for the Analytical Essay on Primary Sources. No sources from outside the course are allowed. Us