Audience Political Affiliation
Class Education
Occupation Gender
Religion
Nationality
Examples of Good POV Statements
Because this excerpt was written in Dickinson’s private journal, it can be considered representative of her true feelings regarding the feud.
As a professional carpenter, Cooper would have been motivated to support laws controlling the price of lumber, as such laws would positively affect his income.
Naturally Wollstonecraft, who wrote about the needs for increased education for females, would pledge her support to a school for young women.
Le Fevre’s status as a French nobleman may have affected his opinion regarding the forced labor of the peasantry, as noblemen were the beneficiaries of this free labor.
Examples of Weak POV Statements
Joan of Arc was French.
Problem: the statement does not explain how being French may have affected Joan of Arc’s POV.
The priest who wrote this statement was biased.
Problem: the statement does not explain why the priest was biased. NEVER simply say that a source was biased, because all historical sources are biased; explain in what way the source is biased and how or why the source became biased.
Since Pepys was writing in his personal diary, he was telling the truth.
Problem: no historical (or contemporary) figure can tell ‘the truth’ because all people are biased by their own personal affiliations. A person writing in a diary can only express his/her own true feelings, or what he/she perceived as the truth.
