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Origin of outcome First recorded in—, outcome is from the Middle English word utcume. See out- , come. See end 1. Words nearby outcome outcast , outcaste , outclass , outclimb , out cold , outcome , out-country , outcrop , outcross , outcry , outcurve. Words related to outcome conclusion , event , fallout , issue , reaction , result , aftereffect , aftermath , end , payback , payoff , score , sequel , upshot , blowoff , chain reaction.
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Choose a dictionary. Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English. Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English. Grammar Thesaurus. Word Lists. Choose your language. My word lists. Tell us about this example sentence:. The word in the example sentence does not match the entry word. The sentence contains offensive content. Cancel Submit. Your feedback will be reviewed. Toynbee, right-wing political scientists like Francis Fukuyama, Marxists, and postmodernists - who, apart from any other uses, apply the term "history" to some great process invented by themselves whereby the past unfolds in a series of stages into the present and on into the future.
In their own studies this process is taken as a given, and they test the history of historians against this given. No, to keep clear of all the misconceptions which abound in historical epistemology we have to make a firm distinction between history as "the bodies of knowledge about the past produced by historians", and "the past" as "everything which actually happened, whether known, or written, about by historians or not".
It follows from all of this that periodization, the dividing of the past up into the eras or periods, has no a priori existence. It is simply an analytical tool of historians. A periodization which makes sense for the West, will not make sense for Africa or Asia.
A periodization which makes sense for economic history, may well not make sense for social or political history. Primary and Secondary Sources. The only way we can have knowledge of the past is through studying the relics and traces left by past societies, the primary sources. Primary sources, as it were, form the basic "raw material" of history; they are sources which came into existence within the period being investigated. The articles and books written up later by historians, drawing upon these primary sources, converting the raw material into history, are secondary sources pedants insist on pointing out that secondary sources may become primary sources for still later historians, but this is a matter of such triviality as scarcely to be worth bothering about.
The distinction between primary and secondary sources is a critical one, though no historian has ever pretended that it offers a magic key to the nature of historical study, or that primary sources have a necromantic potency denied to secondary ones. There is always some excitement about being in contact with a genuine primary source, but one will not learn very much from a single source. Reading through an edited selection of excerpts from primary sources will have the salutary effect of bringing one in contact with the thinking and language of past generations, but it will not amount to research.
If the ordinary reader, or history student, wants to learn quickly about the role and status of women during the Renaissance, or about the causes of the First World War, they will be well advised to go to the secondary authorities, a knowledge of the principles of history being useful in separating out the more reliable from the less.
But if you are planning to make an original contribution to historical knowledge, you are unlikely to make much of a stir if you stick strictly to other people's work, that is, the secondary sources - to which, it should be stressed the research historian will frequently return throughout all stages of research and writing.
The difference is critical in that strategy which all historians, in one way or another, devise in embarking on a new research project. It is through the secondary sources that one becomes beware of the gaps in knowledge, problems unsolved, suspect explanations.
It is with the aid of the secondary sources, and all the other resources of the profession, that one begins to identify the archives in which one will commence one's researches. Primary sources, numbingly copious in some areas, are scarce and fragmentary in others. Much has to be garnered indirectly and by inference. Historians do not rely on single sources, but are always seeking corroboration, qualification, correction; the production of history is very much a matter of accumulating details, refining nuances.
The technical skills of the historian lie in sorting these matters out, in understanding how and why a particular source came into existence, how relevant it is to the topic under investigation, and, obviously, the particular codes or language in accordance with which the particular source came into being as a concrete artefact.
Philosophers, and others ignorant of history, get confused because they think "primary" means "more truthful", and "secondary" means "less truthful". That is not the distinction at all. A good secondary source will be as reliable as the historian can possibly make it. Primary sources are full of prejudices and errors. They were not written to serve the interests of historians coming along later: they were written to serve the interests of those who created them, going about their own business.
We need to understand not just the distinction between primary and secondary sources, but also that there are different types and levels of secondary source. These range from the most highly specialised research-based work, through high-quality textbooks which incorporate some personal research as well as summarise the work of others, to the simple textbooks, and then on to the many types of popular and non-academic history.
Witting and Unwitting Testimony. In their work, historians have always recognised that primary sources, as well as containing many kinds of imperfection, also contain many types and many layers of evidence, even if they have tended not to make explicit statements about this.
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