A historian wrote a book in 1994 about the Roman Republic, using letters that Roman senators had sent each other. How should a student label the letters and the book?

A student reads a merchant's travel journal describing a drought, then finds a separate temple grain record from the same years reporting low harvests. What has the student done?

A king's official inscription lists the temples he built and calls his reign peaceful. What limitation should a student note before using it as evidence about the reign?

A class asks how farmers in a river valley watered their fields. What makes an archaeologist's excavation report on canal remains a strong source for that question?

Archaeologists find storage jars in one town that match jars produced in a workshop hundreds of miles away. What claim does this evidence support most directly?

A student claims a mountain range kept two regions apart. He then finds records of traders crossing a pass every summer. What role do those records play in his writing?

A student copies two sentences from a website into her report, changes only a few words, and never names the website. What is this?

Why does a report include a citation for every source it uses?

Archaeologists uncover bronze tools in an ancient settlement but find no writing there. What can the tools alone support?

Two officials each wrote down what they saw of the same storm in their city. One describes flattened houses, the other only heavy rain. What most likely explains the difference?

A pamphlet written by opponents of a city's rulers attacks them throughout. For what question is this one-sided pamphlet still strong evidence?

A source with a strong point of view should be set aside and never used as evidence.

A city council decides to widen the main road by taking a strip of land from the market stalls along it. What concern would the stallholders most likely raise?

A student uses a historian's idea in her report but writes it in her own words. What does proper attribution require her to do?

A web page about ancient trade gives no author, no date, and no sources for its information. What is the strongest reason to treat it carefully?

A student writes: 'Trade routes carried ideas as well as goods. Paper making spread from East Asia into Southwest Asia along those routes.' What is the second sentence?

A tax record from one province lists grain payments for three years. The student then writes that the whole empire had good harvests in those years. What is the problem?

A class wants to know how a soldier in an ancient army was equipped. What is the strongest source for that question?

A travel writer calls a foreign city's market noisy and its customs strange, but describes his home city as orderly and grand. What should a student conclude from this word choice?

Before using an old letter as evidence, why does a historian ask who wrote it, when it was written, and for what purpose?