AQA 7042 · C3.09 - Building a valid primary and contemporary source set
Learn to check whether an investigation has access to three primary sources of at least two different types, and why that minimum alone does not establish a strong source set. A fictional catalogue lets you practise the check while keeping the choices for any live assessed investigation your own.
Know the minimum
A source set is the group of sources you intend to use together. Building one is not simply a search for three interesting items. It is a feasibility test: can the proposed historical investigation actually be supported by the required evidence?
AQA's requirements create two linked checkpoints:
| Checkpoint | What must be established |
|---|---|
| Before finalising a precise question | Access to at least three primary sources and/or sources contemporary to the period, with two of different types |
| In the completed Investigation | Evaluation of three primary sources, with at least two different types |
A primary source is original evidence created, used or left by people, groups or institutions connected with the past being studied. A source contemporary to the period was produced during that historical period. These descriptions often overlap, but neither label makes a source automatically relevant, accurate or valuable. Those judgements depend on the enquiry and on historical context.
The order matters. If the only apparently relevant source is inaccessible, or if every accessible item is the same type, the proposed question may not be workable. Discover that before the question is made precise, not after research has begun in earnest.
Recognise source types
AQA does not restrict the requirement to one written source plus one image. Different written forms can count as different types. The useful question is, “What was the original form and function of this evidence?”—not, “Which website or file format did I use to open it?”
The following are fictional practice examples, not real historical records:
| Type named or permitted by AQA | Fictional example |
|---|---|
| Official publication | a printed public-health regulation issued by Lydmere's Sanitation Board |
| Report | an engineer's annual report on the capital's waterworks |
| Diary | a potter's day-by-day private notebook |
| Speech | the text of a mayor's address at the opening of a pumping station |
| Letter | a dock labourer's letter to a sibling about water charges |
| Chronicle | a town annal recording droughts, disease and public works |
| Written observation | a visitor's notebook describing a working district from an outsider's perspective, or a resident's account from inside it |
| Artefact | a stamped ceramic token issued at a communal water point |
| Archaeological source | excavated remains of pipes, drains or a well, documented in an excavation record |
| Visual source | a photograph, plan, poster or cartoon whose identity and date can be verified |
“Elite” and “ordinary”, or “insider” and “outsider”, describe perspective rather than file format. They may help you think about range, but AQA's formal minimum is still three sources and at least two types. Similarly, a diary scan, a letter scan and a report scan remain three different original forms even if all arrive as PDF files.
Test a fictional catalogue
Begin with a candidate pool, not a final selection. Each candidate needs enough information for you to confirm what the source is, when it was produced, where it is held and whether you can consult the actual item or a usable reproduction. A search-result title or an AI-generated reference is only a lead until these details have been checked against the repository itself.
Here is a practice catalogue for the wholly fictional state of Lydmere. The practice topic is municipal water reform, 1810–1910; it is not a real NEA title. Every person, repository and catalogue reference below is invented for this lesson.
| Entry | Fictional catalogue record | Practical status |
|---|---|---|
| A | Public Notice on New Water Charges, Lydmere Sanitation Board, 1849, National Records of Lydmere, NLR/SB/12; complete scan | official publication; accessible |
| B | Mara Venn, Annual Report of the East Ward Water Engineer, 1876, City Archive, CA/WAT/8; complete transcription | report; accessible |
| C | Toma Vale to Elin Vale, 14 June 1888, Family Papers, FP/44; complete letter images | letter; accessible |
| D | “Street water queue, about 1895” on an anonymous blog; no creator, repository or stable catalogue record | possible visual source, but identity and access are not established |
| E | Nera Sol's diary, 1902, Lydmere Museum, LM/P/70; catalogue states that the item is closed until 2040 | diary, but not accessible for the investigation |
| F | Lydmere Through the Ages, school textbook, 1975 | secondary account, not a primary/contemporary candidate for this practice period |
| G | ceramic water token, 1910, Museum of Lydmere, ML/O/19; full object record and multi-view image | artefact; accessible |
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