Reading Documents: The HAPPY Analysis

Learning Objectives

  • Describe methods for reading like a historian
  • Analyze primary source documents

Reading like a Historian

To be an effective historian or student of history, you will need to read critically. Every piece of writing, no matter how simple, aims to convince its audience. A wise reader needs not only to understand what the author is saying, but what they want to accomplish. This requires reading closely, with an awareness of your own thought processes as you read, and an enhanced consideration of the writer’s goals and strategy. Honing these skills will serve you well every time you read an advertisement, listen to a political speech, follow the news, or even just watch a TV drama. It is also especially important in history, where we must read documents from and about many different kinds of people and places.

In this course, we’ll be reading two very different types of writing: academic writing, such as articles, textbooks or other secondary material that is written in a modern style, and historical documents, which may be written in older, unfamiliar styles. This historical hack addresses reading historical documents. It presents habits of mind (and eye and hand) you can develop to better comprehend an author’s communication, purpose, and context.

Looking for Cues

The historical documents you encounter in this course will often come from a source reader. These readers are prepared by a modern editor. They usually contain verbal and visual cues inserted by the editor. The editor usually gives the source selection a title, and may divide it into sub-sections, each with a header. There may be helpful footnotes. There will almost certainly be a brief introduction, telling you a bit about the source and why it is important. You should use all these cues, but it’s vital to recognize that they aren’t actually part of the source. They are editorial apparatus. You will need to recognize where the editorial matter ends and the historical document begins. This boundary is usually set off in some way by the editor – a change in type, layout, or spacing.

Our current norms for writing have evolved over many years. Older writing, based on simpler printing (or handwriting) technologies, and different stylistic norms, had different sorts of cues. When you read historical documents, you will need to identify what cues (if any) they use. For example, in medieval writing, paragraphs often had a red letter in their first word. Older techniques of signaling may look primitive: for example, sections may have big Roman numerals, or all-caps. Some documents may lack any cues we are familiar with, and you will have to suffer through without them. Regardless, any document will have some kind of logical flow, even if that logic and the style in which it is expressed differs from our modern expectations.

Close Reading

One of the most important skills in critical reading (and one of the most difficult) is to slow down. In casual reading, we often skim and skip. We jump to the author’s main idea (or what we think the main idea is). Once we “know” what the author is saying, we ignore other details that don’t quite fit. If we encounter a confusing sentence or statement, we just let our eyes slide over it. This kind of fast reading is essential in our busy, information-filled lives. For familiar topics, using familiar cues, on familiar texts, it serves us well. But fast reading can be dangerous when confronting a historical document that contains unfamiliar ideas, uses obscure words, or follows an unfamiliar style. In addition to skimming for structure and main ideas, you should also read the whole piece closely, paying careful attention to difficult sections. You will often encounter unfamiliar words. Don’t just skip them. If an author is using an unfamiliar word often, chances are it is an important clue to their thinking.

Historical writing is likely to use a more complex style than you are used to using. If you are having trouble following a sentence, break it down grammatically. What is the main verb? What is the main subject? What sub-clauses are there? How do they relate to the main clause? Try rephrasing the sentence into modern English. How would someone express the same idea today?

The H.A.P.P.Y. Analysis

Because we will be looking at primary sources so often in this course, it is helpful to use a consistent pattern for analyzing the documents. There are several strategies to help you analyze documents, but no matter which technique you use, the important thing is to simply take the time to read documents carefully and look for the information you need. You want to read historical sources like an investigator—looking for information that might reveal clues about a person, event, or time period. In longer texts, this often includes using headers to help you, reading the introduction, looking up confusing words, and considering the viewpoint from which the primary source originates. One strategy for analyzing primary sources is known as H.A.P.P.Y.

The H.A.P.P.Y. analysis consists of:

H: Historical Context

  • Where and when was this source produced? Focus on how place and time affect its impact, message, and genesis.
  • Place it in the appropriate context – connect it with ideas before and after, or related events.

A: Audience

  • Who is the author’s intended audience?
  • How does the audience affect the validity of the document and its message? For example, how might their message have been modified or shaped to suit their audience?

P: Purpose

  • What is the author’s purpose and/or motivation for creating this source?
  • Is this intended to persuade or inform? Is this some sort of propaganda?
  • How does the purpose affect reliability and validity?

P: Point of View

  • What do you know about the author’s background?
  • How does the author’s role in society and hierarchy affect their perspective?
  • How does this affect the reliability and validity of the source?

Y: Why? (Significance)

  • What is the main idea the source is trying to convey?
  • Why is this source important to history?
  • Why does this source relate to your thesis and/or the prompt? (Remember to explain this in your writing.)

H.A.P.P.Y Analysis of “Pontiac Calls for War”

Let’s practice reading carefully using Pontiac Calls for War.

Pontiac, an Ottawa war chief, drew on the teachings of the prophet Neolin to rally resistance to European powers. This passage includes Neolin’s call that Native Americans abandon ways of life adapted after contact with Europeans. 

I am the Master of Life, whom thou desirest to know and to whom thou wouldst speak. Listen well to what I am going to say to thee and all thy red brethren. I am he who made heaven and earth, the trees, lakes, rivers, all men, and all that thou seest, and all that thou hast seen on earth. Because . . . I love you, you must do what I say and [not do] what I hate. I do not like that you drink until you lose your reason, as you do; or that you fight with each other; or that you take two wives, or run after the wives of others; you do not well; I hate that. You must have but one wife, and keep her until death. When you are going to war, you juggle, join the medicine dance, and believe that I am speaking. You are mistaken, it is to Manitou to whom you speak; he is a bad spirit who whispers to you nothing but evil, and to whom you listen because you do not know me well.

This land, where you live, I have made for you and not for others. How comes it that you suffer the whites on your lands? Can you not do without them? I know that those whom you call the children of your Great Father supply your wants, but if you were not bad, as you are, you would well do without them. You might live wholly as you did before you knew them. Before those whom you call your brothers come on your lands, did you not live by bow and arrow? You had no need of gun nor powder, nor the rest of their things, and nevertheless you caught animals to live and clothe yourselves with their skins, but when I saw that you inclined to the evil, I called back the animals into the depths of the woods, so that you had need of your brothers to have your wants supplied and I shall send back to you the animals to live on.

I do not forbid you, for all that, to suffer amongst you the children of your father. I love them, they know me and pray to me, and I give them their necessities and all that they bring to you, but as regards those who have come to trouble your country, drive them out, make war on them. I love them not, they know me not, they are my enemies and the enemies of your brothers. Send them back to the country which I made for them. There let them remain.

Historical Context

For historical documents, reading critically means placing the author, audience, and message into their historical context. The author and the audience may have lived in times and places very different than our own. Their lives, their knowledge, and their assumptions might be very different than our own. So you need to carefully construct a mental picture of their world, and then relate what they say and what they do to your knowledge of that world.

Ask yourself, based on your readings, what do you know of the historical events surrounding the source? Was there a war? A plague? A technological innovation? A social change? How was society structured? What part of it did the author and audience occupy? How might that affect their viewpoints?

This can be quite tricky. Our guesses about the past might be wrong. But such imaginative reconstructions are necessary to fully appreciate historical sources.

Historical Context Where and when was this source produced? Focus on how place and time affect its impact, message, and creation. Place it in the appropriate context – connect it with ideas before and after, or related events.
Pontiac Calls for War What is the historical context of “Pontiac Calls for War”?

Audience

Comprehending an author’s message is only the first step in reading critically. You still need to figure out why the author sent it: the message’s intended audience, its purpose, and its context. This analysis is the exciting part of the process, and the most useful.

Every piece of writing has an author, an audience, and a message. As you read, you should think about each of these pieces simultaneously.

Who does the author expect will be reading their work? If you are reading a historical document, to whom is it addressed? If the author doesn’t say, can you guess? Is the audience part of the author’s own group (whatever that is) or an outsider? How does the author seem to feel about his audience? Is he or she hostile? Condescending? Flattering? How does he or she seem to feel the audience will regard him or her in turn?

For academic writing, this question is less urgent, but you may notice a difference in content between articles specialists write for each other and articles written for students or for a general audience.

Audience Who is the author’s intended audience? How does the audience affect the validity of the document and its message? E.g., how might their message have been modified or shaped to suit their audience?
Pontiac Calls for War

Purpose

Every piece of writing has a purpose. Even a simple grocery list serves the purpose of reminding me what to buy. Much writing aims to convince someone to adopt an opinion or to perform an action. What action does the author want the audience to perform? What view do they want them to adopt?

Look at how the author constructs their message. What arguments do they employ to convince their audience? Why do they think these arguments might be persuasive? Do they make an emotional appeal? What emotions do they invoke, why, and how?

You may ask yourself: who benefits if the author gets what they want? Human motivations are complex and not always immediately obvious; you should perhaps be skeptical whether the author has some hidden purpose.

Some of our historical documents will have huge, raw messages: to declare a war, to destroy an enemy, or to promote a religion. Others may be more mundane: to describe an event or convince the audience to purchase a product. Regardless, your job as a critical reader is to figure out what that purpose is.

Even our academic writing has a message, although it is often more subtle than historical documents. In articles and books, scholars want to convince their peers that their theories are correct or that they should adopt a particular point of view about a historical event. Textbooks, by their selection of material, aim not only to convey raw data, but to provide a convincing interpretation of that data.

Purpose What is the author’s purpose and/or motivation for creating this source? Is this intended to persuade or inform? Is this some sort of propaganda? How does this affect reliability and validity?
Pontiac Calls for War What is the purpose of “Pontiac Calls for War”?

Point of View

Who is writing? For historical documents, this is hugely important. A document written by a king will be very different than a document written by a farmer or a priest.

When you read a historical document, try to find out as much as you can about the author. Many primary source readers will contain a small biography at the start of the selection. You could also look up the author’s background online. What suppositions can you make about the author based on his or her background? How is it likely to affect the knowledge or other resources available to them? How is it likely to shape their attitudes, prejudices, and goals?

What can you tell about the author just based on his or her own statements? Often, an author’s choice of words reveals a great deal about their mental world and goals.

The same questions apply to modern authors as well. Historians may be liberal or conservative, religious or secular, or favor one group over another in their analysis. Even the authors of textbooks have a background and point of view that affects their selection of facts.

Point of View What do you know about the author’s background? How does the author’s role in society and hierarchy affect their perspective? How does this affect the reliability and validity of the source?
Pontiac Calls for War What is the point of view of “Pontiac Calls for War”?

Y? or Significance

This last component of the HAPPY Analysis includes thinking about the significance, or the importance of the document. Consider the following questions:

  • What is the main idea the source is trying to convey?
  • Why is this source important to history?
  • What makes this event or source memorable?
  • What does this reveal about the time period?
  • What are the results from the event?
  • What is its relevance today?
  • Why does this source relate to your thesis and/or the prompt?
Why? (Significance) What is the main idea the source is trying to convey? Why is this source important to history? Why does this source relate to your thesis and/or the prompt? (Remember to explain this in your writing.)
Pontiac Calls for War
What is the significance of “Pontiac Calls for War”?