Types of Documents

Types of Documents

1. Here we present some characteristics and examples of the different types of documents.

   • Popular Culture Documents
     • Are designed to entertain, inform, and perhaps persuade the public.
     • Examples
       • Television, film, radio, newspapers, literary works, photography, cartoons, and the Internet are sources of “public” data that help to track the change and trends.
   • Personal Documents
     • Provide subjective conclusions
     • Examples
       • Diaries, letters, home videos, children’s growth records, scrapbooks and photo albums, calendars, autobiographies, travel logs, and personal blogs.
     • Refer to any first-person narrative that describes an individual’s actions, experiences, and beliefs
     • Give us a snapshot (personal perspective) into what the author thinks is important.
   • Public Records
     • Reveal
       • These might be otherwise unknown through direct observation
       • Aspirations
       • Arrangements
       • Tensions
       • Relationships
       • Decisions
     • The official, ongoing records of a society’s activities.
     • Examples
       • Ethnographer field notes, diary entries, reports to various agencies, books, newspaper articles, works of fiction about the culture, and photographs.
   • Visual Documents
     • Available online or in the physical setting that one is studying.
     • Capture activities and events as they happen, including communication patterns
       • Facial expressions, gestures, and emotions
     • Examples
       • Film, video, photography, and web-based media. Public records, personal documents, and popular cultural materials can all be in visual formats.