2 Historians follow rules to help them analyze
primary sources. Some of the rules they use are:
• Every piece of evidence and every source must
be read or viewed skeptically and critically.
• Each piece of evidence and source must be
cross-checked and compared with related sources
and pieces of evidence.
—Library of Congress
These rules are designed to help historians
determine the
(1) reliability of document information
(2) popularity of a publication
(3) differences in belief systems
(4) laws of a civilization
The point of these rules are clearly to check if the documents line up with other evidence and are reliable. Since you are cross checking to see that the related evidence matches with the document that you are analyzing.
