Evidence and judgement
How the evidence requirement escalates
| Grade | The 2024 text's wording |
|---|---|
| Achieved | key historical ideas with supporting evidence |
| Merit | key historical ideas with in-depth supporting evidence |
| Excellence | comprehensive evidence drawn from primary and secondary sources |
- Only Excellence names primary and secondary sources, and it names them explicitly. This was added in the 2024 reissue.
- "In-depth" at Merit is about the evidence for each idea, not the number of ideas. Three ideas each carrying one piece of evidence is not in-depth; two ideas each carrying three is.
- "Comprehensive" at Excellence means the evidence covers the argument, not that it covers the topic. Evidence about parts of the topic your argument does not touch is not comprehensiveness — it is padding.
What "well-considered judgements of the evidence" means
- Notice the preposition: judgements of the evidence, not judgements about the past.
- Four judgements that qualify:
- Which source to prefer where two conflict, and why.
- How much weight a source can bear — whether it establishes a claim or only makes it likely.
- What the evidence does not show, and therefore what your claim must stop short of.
- Whether a pattern in the sources reflects the past or reflects how the record was made.
- The fourth is the most valuable and the least attempted. All my evidence about the objections comes from those who overruled them is a judgement about the evidence base, and it bounds every claim built on it.
Using primary and secondary sources for different jobs
- Primary sources establish what the record contains. They are close to the events and they are partial — each was made by someone, for a purpose.
- Secondary sources do three jobs, and only the first is the one students use:
- Supply context you cannot get from a single primary source.
- Show what has already been argued, so your claim can engage with it rather than repeat it.
- Serve as evidence themselves — of how the topic has been understood at different times, which is a Level 3 move and directly serves conclusions from an historian's perspective.
- A submission where every claim rests on secondary sources has read about the topic rather than analysed it. One where every claim rests on primary sources has no idea what has already been established.
Stating a claim at the strength the evidence supports
- This is the practical form of "conclusions from an historian's perspective."
- Three versions of one claim, and only one is defensible:
- Overclaimed: The objections were about cost.
- Abandoned: We cannot know what the objections were about.
- Bounded: The surviving record attributes the objections to cost — and since that record was made by the council and by a paper carrying its advertising, this is better read as what was recorded than as what was said.
- The third preserves the finding, states its provenance, and says what it does not establish. It is not a weaker claim; it is a different and more accurate one.
- Bounding is not hedging. Hedging weakens a claim without saying why. Bounding specifies exactly what is and is not established, and gives the reason.
Answering the objection
- A judgement is well-considered when the alternative has been considered, and considering it means stating it.
- The structure is three moves:
- State the strongest objection to your claim — the one a well-informed reader would raise.
- Grant what is right about it.
- Say why it does not overturn the claim.
- An objection acknowledged and answered strengthens a claim. An objection left hanging weakens it.
- If you cannot answer the objection, that is information: your claim may need to be narrower.
Worked Example
Worked example
Note: the Riversdale Flats Drainage Scheme is an INVENTED case.
A student's argument is: the scheme is significant less for the land it created than for how it is remembered, since the 1994 memorial commemorates the displaced settlement rather than the works.
They have one paragraph to make the key move. Here are two versions. Which reaches Excellence?
Version 1:
Version 2:
Answer:
Step 1 — assess Version 1 against the descriptors.
- Evidence is present — the inscription — and it is used. Achieved level.
- But the reasoning overclaims twice. Shows that the district came to regret moves from a committee's text to a district's feeling. This proves is a stronger word than one inscription can carry.
- No judgement of the evidence appears at all, and no objection is considered. This sits at Achieved, possibly Merit if other paragraphs are stronger.
Step 2 — assess Version 2's first paragraph.
It does something Version 1 does not: it reads one source against another. The claim is not that the inscription says something, but that its emphasis differs from the contemporary account's — which requires both a primary source from 1955 and one from 1994.
That is comprehensive evidence drawn from primary and secondary sources used to make a point, rather than assembled to show coverage.
Step 3 — assess the second paragraph.
The objection is stated in its strongest form, not a weak version chosen to be easy to knock down. It is then granted in part — that is partly right, with the specific evidence for it, the committee of eleven and the absence of consultation evidence.
Then it is answered with two specific limits, and the answer is calibrated: more than a private opinion, even if it is less than a district's verdict. This is a judgement of the evidence — how much weight the source can bear.
Step 4 — assess the third paragraph, which is the Excellence move.
The claim is restated at the strength the evidence supports. Note what it does not do:
- It does not abandon the finding. Something definite is asserted.
- It does not repeat the original overclaim.
- It names what is not established, which bounds every later use of the claim.
Step 5 — name the difference in one sentence.
Version 1 uses evidence to support a conclusion. Version 2 uses evidence and then judges how far it reaches — which is what well-considered judgements of the evidence and conclusions from an historian's perspective both describe.