How do I answer a question on the usefulness of a source

The source based section of your paper will ask you to assess how useful the source is, either in the specific context or in general. To assess the usefulness of a source, you should focus on the content of the source and its provenance, ensuring you provide both how they contribute or limit the usefulness of the source and then giving an overall judgement. The content of the source can be analysed through the message it is trying to portray. Making inferences, in other words making a further judgement from what the source is telling us, is key to analysing the source. In order to do this at a high level, try to draw on your own contextual knowledge too and compare and contrast how this adds or limits the usefulness of the source. The provenance is another key component of the source based question and gives a background of the source, such as the author, location, publisher etc. The provenance can tell us a lot about the usefulness of a source as it allows us to make judgements on information the source doesn't tell us. For example, does the author have a particular political stance or bias that will affect his judgement? Or will the date in which the source was published have an impact upon its reliability, such as the use of censorship? After analysing the contributions and limitations of the source's content and provenance, you should then come to an overall judgment as to how far you think the source is useful, again using what the source has provided and your own knowledge.