Abstract: Abstract: Due to inadequacy and lack of written materials, earlier historical works rely in great extent on the oral historical materials. However, the oral historical materials have their own characteristics. Before adopting these oral materials, they were validated and edited so that their value can be fully displayed. When writing Shiji, Si Maqian validated and audited the oral historical materials carefully, discarding the ridiculous versions, adopting the reliable ones, convert all the versions into one. His unique method in dealing with oral historical materials can be regarded as one of the excellent paradigms in Chinese classical historical works in this aspect.

Key words: oral historical materials, validation and selection, Si Maqian