MODULE 3

External and Internal Criticism

Lesson proper:
Internal Criticism – Looks at content of the course and examine the circumstances of its production, it
also looks on the truthfulness and factuality of the evidence by looking by the author source, its
context, the agenda behind its creation, the knowledge which informed it, and its intended purpose.
Entails that the historian acknowledge and analyze how such reports can be manipulated to be used
as a war propaganda. Validates important historical sources for unverified, falsified and untruthful
historical source that can lead to equally false conclusion. Without this thorough criticism of historical
evidences, historical deceptions and lies will all be probable.
External Criticism – The practice of verifying the authenticity of evidence by examining its physical
characteristics; consistency with the historical characteristics of the time when it was produced; and
the material used for the evidence
- Examples of the things that will be examined when conducting external criticism of a
document include the quality of the paper, the type of link, and the language and words used in
the materials among the others.

INTERNAL CRITICISM
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‘Internal criticism evaluates the meaning, accuracy and trustworthiness of the content of the
document’
(Wiersoma,1886, p.224).

EXTERNAL CRITICISM

internal criticism
imarily deals with relating to form & appearances rather than meaning of
contents

Historical Sources

With the past as history’s subject matter, the historian’s most important research h tools are
historical sources. In general, historical sources can be classified between primary and secondary
sources. The classification of sources between these two categories depends on the historical subject
being studied. Primary source are those sources produced at the same time as the event, period or
subject studied. For example, if a historian wishes to study the commonwealth constitution convention
of 1935, his primary sources can include the minutes of the convention, new2spaper clippings,
Philippine Commission reports of the US Commissioners, rec ords of the convention, draft of the
constitution, and even photographs of the event. Eyewitness account of convention delegates and
their memoirs can also be used as primary sources. The same goes with other subjects of historical
study. Archival documents, artifacts, memorabilia, letters, census, and government records, among
others are the most common examples of primary sources.

On the other hand, secondary sources are those sources, which were produced by an author
who used primary sources to produced the material. In other words, secondary sources are historical
sources, which studied certain historical subjects. For example, on the subject of the Philippine
revolution of 1896, students can read Teodoro Agoncillo’s revolt ​“​Revolt of the Masses​: ​The Story
of ​Bonifacio and the Katipunan ​published originally in 1956. The Philippine Revolution happened in
the last years of the nineteenth century while Agoncillo published his work in 1956, which makes the
Revolt of the Masses a ​ secondary source. More than this, in writing the book, Agoncillo used primary
source with his research like document of the Katipunan, interview with the veterans of the revolution,
and correspondence between and among katipuneros.

However, a students should not be confused about what counts as a primary or a secondary
source. As mentioned above, the classification of sources between primary and secondary depends
not on the period when the source was produced or the type of the source but on the subject of the
historical research. For example, a textbook is usually classified as a secondary source, a tertiary
source even. However, this classification is usual but not automatic. If a historian chose to write the
history of education in the 1980’s, he can utilize textbooks used in that period as a primary source. If
a historian wishes to study the historiography of the Filipino-American War for example, he can use
works of different authors on the topic as his primary source as well.
 Both primary and secondary sources are useful in writing and learning history. However, historians
and students need thoroughly scrutinize these historical sources to avoid deception and to
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come up tih the historical truth. The historian should be able to conduct and ​EXTERNAL and
INTERNAL CRITICISM o ​ f the source, especially primary sources which can age in centuries.
“​EXTERNAL CRITICISM” ​is the practice of verifying the authenticity of evidence by examining
its physical characteristics; consistency with the historical characteristic of the time when it
was produced; and the materials used for the evidence. ​Examples of the things that will be
examined when conducting external criticism of a document include the quality of the paper, the type
of the ink, and the language and words used in the material among others.

INTERNAL CRITICISM, ​on the other hand, is the examination of the truthfulness of the
evidence. It looks at the content of the source and examines the circumstances of its production.
Internal criticism looks at the truthfulness and factuality of the evidence by looking at the author of the
source , its context, the agenda behind its creation, the knowledge which informed it, and its intended
purpose among others. For example, Japanese reports declarations during the period of the war
should not be taken as a historical fact hastily. ​Internal criticism e ​ ntails that the historian
acknowledge and analyze how such reports can be manipulated to be used as war propaganda.
Validating historical sources is important because the use of unverified, falsified and untruthful
historical sources can lead to equally false conclusions. Without thorough criticisms of historical
evidences, historical deceptions and lies will be highly probable.

One of the most scandalous cases of deception in Philippine History is the Hoax Code of
Kalantiaw. The code was a set of rules contained in an epic, Maragtas, which allegedly written by a
certain Datu Kalantiaw. The document was sold to the national Library and was regarded as an
important precolonial document until 1968, when American historian William Henry Scott debunked
the authenticity of the code due to anachronism and lack of evidence to prove that the code existed in
the precolonial Philippine Society. Ferdinand Marcos claimed that he was a decorated World War II
soldier who led a guerilla unit called Ang Maharlika. This was widely believed by students of history
and Marcos was had war medals to show, this claims with the war records of the United States.
These cases prove how deceptions can propagate without rigorous historical research.

The task of the historian is to look at the available historical sources and select the most
relevant and meaningful for history and for the subject matter that he is studying. history, like other
academic discipline, has come a long way but still has a lot of remaining task to do. It does not claim
to render absolute and exact judgement because as long as questions are continuously asked, and
as long as time unfolds, the study of history can never be complete. The task of the historian is to
organize the past that is being created so that it can offer lessons for nations, societies, and
civilization. It is the historian’s job to seek for the meaning of recovering the past to let the people see
the continuing relevance of provenance, memory, remembering, and historical understanding for both
the present and the future.
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