Primary sources are “written by someone who was there at the time.” [308] These sources are usually the closest piece of information we can find that relate to the topic that is being studied. Primary sources, although, may not be as true as we want them to be or they should be. They are often described as the “bedrock of history.” [308] For example, when learning about the assassination of a president or a revolution, we might just get this information from our history book or a website we read it on like “History.com,” but this does not prove that the information is factual because there is no source document or proof that this is how the event happened or the causes of it. So how reliable are these sources? Through eye-witness testimonies, …show more content…
They are able to identify the circumstances of an event, and possibly all details of it such as the causes and the results of it. For example, if we happen to meet the great grand father of someone who happened to be a slave during the Civil War, he would provide us with all details of a war. Although in a textbook, we would only learn the main key points of the war, this witness would be able to take us through a more lively experience of living in the South as a slave and how the attack on Fort Sumter started the war. Another example could be criminal case. Someone who is leaving their job late at night could have had their purse stolen and been murdered which is then witnessed by the watch man that was on duty that night. When called in to testify, there are several different ways his response could be given. He may alter his response depending on who the victim may be. By saying this, not all individuals see the same thing or because they bring in their views of “interests, expectations, and cultural background.” For example, in history we learn about the mistreatment of African American slaves. Around the period of the mid-1800’s, we learn that slaves were not allowed to become U.S. citizens. Because of the dislike of slaves in this period of time the personal views of the legislation is altered to fit their needs. So, eyewitness …show more content…
Through the social bias view of primary sources, it “reflects the interests of one particular social group rather than a society as a whole.” We tend to see how one part of the world functions and make assumptions based on that instead of how the world does itself. For example, in US history, we learned that the south were prosalverites and the north were anti salverites. But the south probably mainly supported this due to the fact of the land they had conserved for the production of cotton, corn, and wheat. In this relative setting, slaves were more important and were needed to perform labor whereas the north was more industrial based with the machines doing the work. This shows how social bias uses self interests to make judgments and therefore, learning from an eye witness’ testimony would have the social bias come along with it. Using the slave example, the primary source is more focused on the fact that the south is pro slavery and the north is antislavery. Their center of attention is how each side responded to slavery rather than what the slaves were used for. This social bias could also be presented as normative social influence. Normative social influence would “render the impact of a response that provides a correct, positive presentation.” [Steblay] This statement is basically implying that a social influence can change the responses of the witness when detailing on
When it comes to learning about events and people in history, nothing beats a primary source. There is information directly from the event and there are no worries about incorrect data because the author was there to witness said event. But the main problem with primary sources is the fact that it only covers part of the story. So if a book is written about, say, the concentration camps of World War II, then all that it would be about would be that persons view of the camps, not what was happening during the actually war. This is where secondary sources come in. Secondary sources are written by authors who were not involved in the event, but rather did research on said event and wrote a novel covering what they believe to be all important aspects. Secondary sources are helpful when wanting to know more than just one aspect of an event, for example, you can know what was happening with the ally powers and axis powers, rather than just one or the other. Despite not being involved in the events, secondary sources still tend to contain bias. This essay will cover the bias of the novel Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, by Edward Humes and how this either helped to prove or disprove his thesis.
The Civil War had a very large affect on all of the States. It changed men from gentlemen that went to church every Sunday and never cussed to people who rarely went to church and cussed all the time. Some of the people in the war were also very corrupt and did not do things as they should be done. The way that the enemy was looked at was even changed. All of these things were talked about in "The Civil War Diary of Cyrus F. Boyd".
The decades leading up to the American Civil War showed a great divide in the economic, political, and regional attitudes between the North and South. These divisions still plague the country today. However, there is a divide on whether economic anxieties or political differences were the major factor in the run up to the Civil War.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
During winter months, basic huts were constructed from wood when it was available. During the civil war, most of the soldiers fought only 75 percent of the time. When they were not fighting, their day usually started at 5:00 in the morning during the summer and spring, and 6:00 in the morning during the fall and winter. Soldiers would be awakened by fifes and drums, then the first sergeant would take a roll call, and all the men sat down to eat breakfast. During the day, soldiers would be engaged in sometimes as many as five 2-hour long drill sessions on weaponry or maneuvers.
“War at its basic level has always been about soldiers. Nations rose and fell on the strength of their armies and the men who filled the ranks.” This is a very powerful quote, especially for the yet young country of the United States, for it gives credit where credit is truly due: to the men who carried out the orders from their superiors, gave their blood, sweat and tears, and in millions of cases their lives while fighting for ideals that they believed their country or government was founded upon, and to ensure the continuation of these ideals. Up until the end of the 20th Century, they did so in the worst of conditions, and this includes not only the battle scene, but also every day life. In this essay, I will examine the daily life of the Civil War soldier, including: identifying WHO he was, drill and training, camp life, supplies he used, clothes he wore, food he ate, on the battlefield, psychological aspects including morale and his attitude toward the war, and his sexual life. That’s right, you read it correctly: HIS SEX LIFE!
Officers in the field lived much better than enlisted men. They generally assigned one or two officers to a tent. Since they provided their own personal gear, items varied greatly and reflected individual taste. Each junior officer was allowed one trunk of personal belongings that was carried in one of the baggage wagons. Higher-ranking officers were allowed more baggage. Unlike infantrymen, who slept and sat on whatever nature provided, officers sometimes had the luxury of furniture.
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
The use of eyewitnesses has been a constant in of criminal justice system since its very beginning. Unfortunately, people do not make the best witnesses to a crime. The person may not have seen the actual criminal, but someone that looks similar to them. The witness may lie about what he or she may have scene. Also the witness can be influenced by the police as to who or what they saw at the time of the crime. The witness or victims memory of the person may have faded so that they don’t remember exactly what had seen, which could be disastrous for the accused.
The Civil War was the first major conflict to be documented by photography. At the time of the Civil War, it was vital to have public support on both the North and the South side of the dispute. It is also said that if war efforts do not have complete support of its’ citizens that it will not result to any benefits. Photography was one way that was almost guaranteeing support of citizens on the homefront. Photographers had power within their photographs, toying with the pathos of the civilians, and causing them to feel whatever the photographers wanted them to. This power was abused at time by manipulating people’s opinions towards the war. There were pictures coming back from the warfront one after the other which made it impossible for people to feel an emotional connection to the soldiers at war. These photographs allowed events happening miles away to feel like they were closer to home causing people to support the war efforts more heavily. Instead of people having their own opinions during the war, photographers used manipulative
...nd it should not be used. With having a reason they were able to attack for the states that they wished to take. (Ferling John)
For example, the old man that lived beneath the boy and his father testified that he heard a fight between the boy and the father and heard the boy yell, “I’m gonna kill you,” along with a body hitting the ground, and then claims that he saw the boy running down the stairs. With this information, along with other powerful eyewitness testimonies, all but one of the jury members believed this boy was guilty. The power of eyewitness testimony is also shown in Loftus’s (1974) study. In this study, Loftus (1974) found that those who claimed to “see” something were usually believed even when their testimony is pointless. She discovered in her study that only 18 percent of people convicted if there was no eyewitness testimony, 72 percent of people convicted when someone declared, “That’s the one!”, and even when the witness only had 20/400 vision and was not wearing glasses and claimed “That’s the one!”, 68 percent of people still convicted the person. This proves that in 12 Angry Men and Loftus (1974) study, eyewitness testimony is very powerful and influential in one’s decision to convict a
Eyewitness testimony is especially vulnerable to error when the question is misleading or when there’s a difference in ethnicity. However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely 100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie. For instance, a group of students saw the face of a young man with straight hair, then heard a description of the face supposedly written by another witness, one that wrongly mentioned light, curly hair. When they reconstructed the face using a kit of facial features, a third of their reconstructions contained the misleading detail, whereas only 5 percent contained it when curly hair was not mentioned (Page 359). This situation shows how misleading information from other sources can be profoundly altered.
When it comes to memory, individuals can often forget or imagine the truth when retrieving the event from their brain. In the first article, Judging the reality of other’ memories, it states that writing an event or information down will help people remember it more accurately. This also can be beneficial to students to help memorize. A study resulted that “taking notes in class on a laptop rather than by hand leads to worse performance on tests of that material (Mueller and Oppenheimer, 2014)” (Grison, Heatherton, Gazzaniga, 2017). Although witnesses can be beneficial to get information from, their statements are only versions of the truth. Given the second article, Expert testimony on eyewitness evidence: In search of common sense, people are able to realize that everyone has their own perspective and it’s different from others’. Misleading interviews and feedback can also alter individuals’ statements. When someone witnesses something, they have to be fully invested in it, if not, “it won’t be encoded and stored in a way that is accurate” (Grison, Heatherton, Gazzaniga, 2017). All in all, the reliability of eyewitness testimony can vary due to the fullness of attention and false memories, but some witnesses are able to contribute beneficial
From a legal standpoint, eyewitness memories are not accurate. Though they all illustrate the same concept, each paper described different ways eyewitness memories were altered. One’s memory can be misleading by their own attributions towards the situation, what they choose to see and not see, and if the individual has been through a single event or repetitive stressful events. As human beings, our memories on all matters are not concrete. When retelling stories, we tend to modify the situation and tailor certain events, making the information provided unreliable. An eyewitness testimony changes the track of a trial and information that is given to the court can be ambiguous and can cause bias towards the circumstances. Eyewitnesses can even be confident in their retelling of a situation and explain a complete event, when in fact, that particular event never