Thrisha’s TOK Blog

 How do we know if a source or a claim can be trusted?  To be able to believe and trust that a source is correct and isn't factually wrong, a thorough analysis must be done. Time period is a very important factor. When was the information published? For some topics, it’s okay if you use an older source. For example, if you want to know what DNA is, it’s okay if the source was published five years ago. But, if you’re researching what the latest DNA discoveries, a five-year-old source wouldn’t be helpful. Is the source relevant: Does this information meet your wants? For example, an article aimed at educating young children about DNA would probably not be a relevant source if you work for a tech firm and are writing a report about whether to acquire some DNA technology. It’s okay if a source isn’t perfectly relevant to your research question, since that’s where analysis comes in. For example, if you were researching the Housing Crisis in LA, you might read about how expensive c...

  What is the Role of Imagination in the Writing of History? The past is irrecoverable. We cannot go back in time and experience something firsthand again. The men and women cannot be brought back to life. The experiences that had occurred cannot occur again.   Objects of historical thought are events which have finished happening and those conditions no longer exist. As far as present experiences are concerned, the past is non-existent, the physical and mental elements of past events can only be constructed in imagination by the historian’s mind, upon what he takes to be evidence for the past, therefore, his picture of the past, is imaginary in every detail. When historians try to imagine of events of the past based on the sources, they try to justify their imagination and try to make sense of the situation logically in order to understand what had occurred. This can be considered them having multiple interpretations of what had happened in the past and try to justify...