Grade 12 · lesson 2 of 4

Source Provenance and Corroboration

Provenance identifies where a source came from and how it was created.

About 20 minutes, plus any extended practice

Supplied materials

Paper and pencil; drawing or spoken answers are welcome.
Topic notes: Provenance: information about creation and custody of a source. Corroboration: comparison with relevant independent evidence. Scope: the population, place, period or measure covered. Missingness: information absent from the supplied record.
Original exercise cards: Fictional record names its creator, date and archive. / Fictional analysis checks a meeting record against an independent attendance log. / Fictional dataset covers only one library branch for one month. / Fictional archive lacks records from one year. / A claim is checked against a separately created source. / A fictional record concerns a defined neighborhood. / A fictional table has no observations for one affected group. / A fictional document describes how the record was assembled.

Learn the idea

Provenance identifies where a source came from and how it was created. Corroboration compares relevant independent evidence. Scope states what the evidence covers; missingness states what is absent. A source can be useful without proving every claim, and multiple copies of one account are not independent corroboration.

Provenance: information about creation and custody of a source. Corroboration: comparison with relevant independent evidence. Scope: the population, place, period or measure covered. Missingness: information absent from the supplied record.

Separate the supplied evidence, decision rule and remaining uncertainty before reaching a conclusion. These exercise cards are original classroom prompts, not quotations or archival documents. The historical notes describe actual topics; invented situations are explicitly called fictional. A correct match needs a reason from the notes, not just a guessed label.

Read the actual topic notes and identify the facts or rule needed for this question.
Work through the solved analysis, distinguishing observations, interpretations and evidence limits.
Solve the new main case: show the relevant sequence, calculation, mechanism, institutional relationship or source comparison before choosing.
Complete the distinct practice cases and state which further evidence would be needed for a broader claim.

Worked example

See the method in action

Worked analysis: Two fictional articles repeat the same interview, while an independently created attendance record covers the relevant period. First, separate the supplied facts and the question each can answer. Then compare the relevant rule, relationship or scope. The articles are not independent corroboration of the interview. The separate record may corroborate its matching attendance claim but cannot verify unrelated experiences. Trace dependence between sources and compare only claims each can actually observe.

Your turn

Check your reasoning

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Helpful tips

Trace dependence between sources and compare only claims each can actually observe.
Keep the four distinctions separate: Provenance, Corroboration, Scope, Missingness. Use a complete reason rather than copying only a title.

See the answer and explanation

Two origins: the press release and the attendance log, with scope checked separately.

Copying does not create independent evidence. The three websites trace to one release; the independently collected log is a second origin but only corroborates claims it can observe.

Take it further

Write a short response to a new classroom draft claiming that the worked analysis proves a universal result. Use two distinct supplied facts from this lesson, give a supported conclusion, and identify the extra evidence needed for the draft’s broader claim. Expected reasoning: The articles are not independent corroboration of the interview. The separate record may corroborate its matching attendance claim but cannot verify unrelated experiences. A valid response names the scope and does not invent a quotation, date, measure or achieved result.

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More practice: try new cases

Choose an answer for each problem. Explain your method on paper, then use the feedback to decide what to revisit.

1. Compare the supplied original classroom notes: A — A claim is checked against a separately created source. B — A fictional record concerns a defined neighborhood. Which interpretation preserves both facts?Both concern only comparison with relevant independent evidence.Both concern only the population, place, period or measure covered.A concerns comparison with relevant independent evidence; B concerns the population, place, period or measure covered.A concerns the population, place, period or measure covered; B concerns comparison with relevant independent evidence.

Need a hint?

Find the defining action, direction, date, institution or resource in each note separately.
Keep the conclusion within the stated examples; do not add a universal ranking or unstated causal result.

2. Read this supplied card: “A fictional table has no observations for one affected group.” A writer adds, “This one example proves that every person and society has the same experience.” Which revision keeps what the card supports?Reject the specific evidence completely because it does not describe everyone.Replace the stated feature with “information about creation and custody of a source”, even though that is a different feature.Keep the specific supported feature: information absent from the supplied record. Do not extend one example to every person or society.The one example proves the same experience for every person and society.

Need a hint?

Find the defining action, direction, date, institution or resource in each note separately.
Keep the conclusion within the stated examples; do not add a universal ranking or unstated causal result.

3. Original classroom brief combines two notes: Fictional record names its creator, date and archive. / Fictional dataset covers only one library branch for one month. Its draft wrongly treats them as identical. Which corrected comparison is supported?The first concerns the population, place, period or measure covered; the second concerns information about creation and custody of a source.Both establish only information about creation and custody of a source.Both establish only the population, place, period or measure covered.The first concerns information about creation and custody of a source; the second concerns the population, place, period or measure covered. They are distinct features.

Need a hint?

Find the defining action, direction, date, institution or resource in each note separately.
Keep the conclusion within the stated examples; do not add a universal ranking or unstated causal result.

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Check the subject sources

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