IOPCAM analysis - How to...

How to complete an IOPCAM analysis

Multiple Select

What does it mean to analyse?

• To read something carefully

• Breaking down something complex, making it simple so that it can be more easily understood

• Describing something that you've read in more detail

• Identifying separate features that make up a text, and explain their effects on their intended audience

Write down this definition:

To analyse means to:

• examine anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features : a thorough study.

• Identify separate features that make up a text, and explain their effects on their intended audience.

Open Ended

What do you think we need to know about a text to conduct a thorough analysis?

​What is IOPCAM?

​IOPCAM is a helpful acronym that some history students use to help with text analysis. These are the "features" of a text that we identify in analysis.

Multiple Select

What is information?

• The explicit meaning of a text.

• The implicit meaning of a text.

• The details of a text.

• Nformation, by Apple.

Write this definition down:

Information

Information refers to the explicit or implicit meaning of a text. When we determine a text's meaning, we consider all the details in the text and identify the ways in which a text corroborates or contradicts another text discussing the same event.

EXPLICIT VS IMPLICIT INFORMATION

Explicit information is information that does not need to be interpreted in a source. We can take it at face value. "It was very hot" is an explicit statement. It means exactly what it says, but what if I said "it was a sauna outside"?

IMPLICIT INFORMATION

Implicit information requires a degree of interpretation. Saying "it is a sauna outside" if taken at face value is a lie. There isn't really a sauna outside. But do I actually mean there is a literal sauna outside?

By saying it is a sauna outside, I actually mean to say that it is "hot". To understand what I mean, you need to interpret a little. This makes the the meaning "implicit".

Open Ended

What is the implicit meaning of this text?

Origin: Write this definition down

The origin of a source is its author and source type. Origin tells us "who" wrote the source as well as the "genre" of the text.

Open Ended

What is the origin of this text?

Perspective (write this definition)

Perspective is about understanding an event the way a particular group or person experiences and understands it. People may experience the same event and develop different opinions and biases depending on how it effects them.

Multiple Choice

Why did the woman in the video think the neighbour's clothes were dirty?

• The clothes were actually dirty

• The window was dirty

Open Ended

Was the woman biased (i.e. was already prejudiced against her neighbour) or were her judgements based purely on what she could see at the time?

Open Ended

Looking back at a source we considered earlier, what can be said about the perspective of the person creating the source?

Context (Write this down)

The context of a text tells you when a source was created and what was happening around that time. Understanding context in history is very important. The meaning of a text can be completely different across different times and situations.

Open Ended

The word "sick" can have three different meanings depending on the context. Can you list their meanings in 1 minute?

Audience (write this down)

The audience is who the author created a source for. This matters, because usually an author will want to be understood in a particular way by a particular group of people.

Motive (write down)

Motive refers to the purpose for creating a source. An author will usually try to do one of six things:
- Entertain
- Persuade
- Dissuade
- Warn
- Encourage
- Inform

Origin, perspective, context, audience and motive help us to judge a source's reliability in recounting a historic event.

​Reliability

In IOPCAM - the information part is where we find what we need to judge a source's usefulness for understanding an historic event.

Usefulness

Reliability and Usefulness

​Usefulness and Reliability

At the end of your IOPCAM analysis, don't forget to make a judgement on your source's usefulness and reliability.

"Source __ is mostly reliable/unreliable because __________". Source is useful because ______________".

Use IOPCAM analysis to determine the reliability and usefulness of this source.

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​Homework