Historical Method - Internal Criticism: Historical Reliability

Internal Criticism: Historical Reliability

Noting that few documents are accepted as completely reliable, Louis Gottschalk sets down the general rule, "for each particular of a document the process of establishing credibility should be separately undertaken regardless of the general credibility of the author." An author's trustworthiness in the main may establish a background probability for the consideration of each statement, but each piece of evidence extracted must be weighed individually.

Read more about this topic:  Historical Method

Famous quotes containing the words internal and/or historical:

    You will see Coleridge—he who sits obscure
    In the exceeding lustre and the pure
    Intense irradiation of a mind,
    Which, with its own internal lightning blind,
    Flags wearily through darkness and despair—
    A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,
    A hooded eagle among blinking owls.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Yet the companions of the Muses
    will keep their collective nose in my books
    And weary with historical data, they will turn to my dance tune.
    Ezra Pound (1885–1972)