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NARRATOR: As part of your history studies, you'll be required to read historical sources, particularly primary sources. While doing so, you'll begin noticing that some language used by the source's creator is quite extreme or obviously one-sided. When you notice this, you may have discovered bias in your source. Identifying bias is a powerful skill in source analysis because it helps you draw conclusions about the reliability and usefulness of your source.

So what is bias? Bias is when the creator's perspective is so strongly for or against something that the information in the source has become unbalanced or prejudiced. Since all sources are created by human beings, and all people feel strongly about things, all sources ultimately contain some degree of bias. But it's not always possible to detect it.

So when you find bias in a source, it is usually categorized into two kinds, either extremely positive or extremely negative. If extremely positive, you can describe the source as being strongly in favor of or pro- something. For example, you can say that a source has a pro-German bias.

If extremely negative you can describe the source as being strongly against or anti- something. For example, you could say that a source has an anti-Communist bias. On occasions, particularly in exams, when you're asked what bias is present in a specific source, and you cannot find one, you can simply say that it is a balanced source.

So how do you detect bias in a source? In order to find bias, you need to look very carefully at what the source says. If it is a written source, you'll need to find word choices that are extreme in their descriptions. If it's a visual source like a photograph or a painting, you're looking for depictions that are clearly exaggerated. For the purposes of this video though, we will focus mainly on written sources.

So what kind of word choices are you looking for when you're reading a source? Here are some ideas. Extreme positivity-- when describing people or events, the language of the source is too positive and does not provide any negative information. Extreme negativity-- when describing people or events, the language used by the creator is too negative and does not provide any positive information.

Silence-- the source intentionally leaves out important information, of which you are aware from other sources. Obvious errors-- the source provides information that to be false, based on what from alternate sources. So if you notice any of these things in your source, it indicates that the creator has a specific bias about the person or event and wants to communicate in a way that positions the audience to see things from the same biased perspective.

So once you've noticed bias, how do you then prove that that bias exists? There are three things you should do. Number one, provide a direct quote from the source that demonstrates overly positive or negative language. Number two, explain what perspective the creator wanted to convince the audience to have on the person or event, based upon this bias. And thirdly, if necessary, you may also want to explain what motivated the creator to be so biased in their source.

But please be aware, just because you found bias in a source doesn't automatically make the source unreliable or inaccurate. Of course, many sources that are consistently biased do tend to be less reliable. So now that you know what bias is, how to detect it, and how to prove it, let's have a look at some examples to help you practice.

In 1938, when Hitler's Nazi Party was ruling Germany, there was a children's book printed called The Poisonous Mushroom. It was created to teach racist Nazi beliefs about the Jewish people, to children. It was an incredibly racist book, as you'll see. One section of this book says that Jews are poison. Just as a single poisonous mushroom can kill a whole family, so a single Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire nation.

The use of extreme language in this book, like "destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire nation," is clear evidence of a strong bias against Jews. Even claiming that the Jewish people as a group are poison is clearly negative language. Therefore, it can be successfully proven that this source is strongly against Jews or anti-Jewish. By the way, a technical term for anti-Jewish bias is called anti-Semitism. This source, therefore, is anti-Semitic.

Onto our second example. By the way, secondary sources are not immune from bias either. A famous 19th century German historian by the name of Theodor Mommsen famously described Julius Caesar in extremely biased terms. He said that Caesar was a unique man. His whole nature was perfect purity. He was the entire and perfect man.

The use of the words "perfect purity" and "entire and perfect man" are definitely over the top in their praise of Caesar. Therefore, we can confidently say that this source has a pro-Caesar bias.

Now you have a better understanding of what bias means in regards to historical sources. I hope that you feel more confident in your studies. If you need further explanations, examples, and advice, head on over to HistorySkills.com. And I'll see you next time.

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