When looking at secondary sources one must take a different view than when analyzing a primary source. There are several credentials that must be met for a truly reliable secondary source. First, who is the author, are there any authors, or was a university or nonprofit responsible for the source? Second, who published the source, is it a website, a journal or a book? Third, who is this source geared toward and what does it want its audience to know or understand? Fourth, what makes this source so credible and reliable? Finally, the most crucial item to look at is the source itself, what is its argument, where is it at in the scholarly conversation, if it is in the conversation at all. Those are the primary objectives to look at when analyzing a secondary source. The Source that will go through all these checkpoints in this paper is an article written by Richard J. Walter titled The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina. Richard J.
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Walter is a Professor at Washington University in St. Louis in St. Louis Missouri. He has been writing pieces that cover the Latin American countries as early as 1968 with his first book Student Politics in Argentina: The University Reform and its Effects, 1918-1964. He has an extensive history with writing about Latin American countries like Argentina, Buenos Aires, and Chile. In fact, it appears as if the source is one of his earlier works in his career. As for the publisher or who takes responsibility for the article being presented, that would be Duke University Press. Duke University is a very well known publisher in the fields of humanities and social sciences. It sets very high standards for the books, reviews, and articles they publish. The credibility of this article is huge when seeing that the author and the publisher are both very well known. The next objective is to examine the audience this piece wishes to influence and the references the author uses in the article. The audience of this article becomes clearer when one looks at where the source was published for the masses to view. First, this article was found on Jstor, which is an academic resource that most libraries keep. It states that anyone can find this article in The Hispanic American Historical Review. This journal is considered a pioneer in the study of Latin American history and culture and is one of the most respected journals in the field. It can also be viewed at the Duke University library online, which is open to the public. This lends even more to the masses being the audience of this piece. When examining this source Richard Walter says his thesis concisely within the first two paragraphs, “The purpose of this paper is to examine particularly the intellectual background out of which the university reform developed.” He then lays out two points that he will specifically cover, one the prevailing intellectual atmosphere in Argentina during the two decades prior to the Cordoba Reforms and second that very prominent intellectuals influenced the students leading the movement. Walter’s argument is that during the two decades prior to the Cordoba Reforms there was a lot of turmoil within Argentina and the world. He discusses how in 1916 the Radical party took the vote from the conservatives and elected Hipolito Yrigoyen as the president. This combined with the new constitution in Mexico 1917 was suppose to show a
Walter is a Professor at Washington University in St. Louis in St. Louis Missouri. He has been writing pieces that cover the Latin American countries as early as 1968 with his first book Student Politics in Argentina: The University Reform and its Effects, 1918-1964. He has an extensive history with writing about Latin American countries like Argentina, Buenos Aires, and Chile. In fact, it appears as if the source is one of his earlier works in his career. As for the publisher or who takes responsibility for the article being presented, that would be Duke University Press. Duke University is a very well known publisher in the fields of humanities and social sciences. It sets very high standards for the books, reviews, and articles they publish. The credibility of this article is huge when seeing that the author and the publisher are both very well known. The next objective is to examine the audience this piece wishes to influence and the references the author uses in the article. The audience of this article becomes clearer when one looks at where the source was published for the masses to view. First, this article was found on Jstor, which is an academic resource that most libraries keep. It states that anyone can find this article in The Hispanic American Historical Review. This journal is considered a pioneer in the study of Latin American history and culture and is one of the most respected journals in the field. It can also be viewed at the Duke University library online, which is open to the public. This lends even more to the masses being the audience of this piece. When examining this source Richard Walter says his thesis concisely within the first two paragraphs, “The purpose of this paper is to examine particularly the intellectual background out of which the university reform developed.” He then lays out two points that he will specifically cover, one the prevailing intellectual atmosphere in Argentina during the two decades prior to the Cordoba Reforms and second that very prominent intellectuals influenced the students leading the movement. Walter’s argument is that during the two decades prior to the Cordoba Reforms there was a lot of turmoil within Argentina and the world. He discusses how in 1916 the Radical party took the vote from the conservatives and elected Hipolito Yrigoyen as the president. This combined with the new constitution in Mexico 1917 was suppose to show a