Primary vs. secondary sources; lateral reading and click restraint for digital evaluation

Sort: I'll show 5 sources. Vote — primary or secondary? (1) Anne Frank's Diary. (2) A biography of Anne Frank written in 2020. (3) A newspaper from 15 March 1945 reporting on a concentration camp liberation. (4) A 2015 documentary about Anne Frank. (5) A scholarly article analyzing Anne Frank's writing style.

• Collect votes; reveal answers (1 P, 2 S, 3 P, 4 S, 5 S)
• Note that source 3 is primary about WWII Europe but could be SECONDARY about Anne Frank specifically
• Tee up the discipline-and-question-relative framing

Primary sources are first-hand, original evidence from the time, event, or person being studied. Secondary sources analyze or interpret primary sources. But what counts as primary DEPENDS on the discipline and the question. In HISTORY, primary = letter, diary, newspaper-from-the-time, photograph, treaty, oral-history. In SCIENCE, primary = peer-reviewed research article, lab notebook, dataset. In HUMANITIES, primary = the novel/poem/play being studied, the speech being analyzed. In SOCIAL SCIENCE, primary = survey data, interview transcript, government statistics. A 1950s newspaper is SECONDARY about the Civil War but PRIMARY about 1950s attitudes toward the Civil War. The relativity is the key insight. Now: lateral reading. When you find a digital source, the working researcher's first move is NOT to read it carefully. The first move is to OPEN OTHER TABS and check: (1) who is the author? (2) what is the publication? (3) what do other sources say about this claim? (4) are there competing claims? Lateral reading means reading SIDEWAYS, across multiple sources, BEFORE going deep on one. Click restraint means: don't trust the top search result. The top result is often paid, advertised, or just SEO-optimized — not the most accurate. Scroll, read snippets, open 3-4 tabs before committing to read any one source carefully.

• Notice the stela is the MOST primary — Maya-made, contemporary, untranslated by a colonial filter.

  model (a) primary (16th-century eyewitness, biased but contemporary), (b) secondary (modern scholar interpreting primaries), (c) primary (Maya-authored object), (d) secondary (journalist interpreting scholarship).

  prompt Discipline-specific primary/secondary: classify these for a HISTORY question about the Maya. (a) A 16th-century Spanish priest's account of Maya rituals. (b) A 2020 archaeologist's book on Maya astronomy. (c) An inscribed Maya stela from 600 CE. (d) A National Geographic article from 2019.
• Reading the source carefully is step 5, not step 1. Save your deep-reading time for sources that pass lateral evaluation.

  model Tab 1: author's name (do they have credentials?). Tab 2: publication's About page (mission, funding, history). Tab 3: the specific claim (what do other sources say?). Tab 4: competing claims (who disagrees and why?).

  prompt Lateral reading demonstration: find a website claiming X. Open 4 tabs to evaluate. What 4 tabs?
• The top result is often the most marketed, not the most accurate. Click restraint is a habit.

  model Scroll past. Open tabs 4-7. Check who runs those sources. Open Wikipedia AND a primary source (her own book) AND a journalistic profile. Triangulate.

  prompt Click restraint applied: search 'Vanessa Nakate biography.' First 3 results are ad/promotional. What do you do?

• Pair-share: name a source that is primary in one discipline but secondary in another.
• Cold Call: what 4 tabs would you open for lateral reading of a new digital source?
• Thumbs: I can apply lateral reading (up) / I need re-explanation (down)

M-7-F-RES-04-A Chart

MG-4 primary/secondary taxonomy anchor displayed: 2-column card with discipline-specific examples. Primary green; secondary blue. Bottom rule: 'What counts as primary depends on the discipline and the question.' Print-ready 11x17.

MG-4 Chart

Primary vs. secondary source taxonomy anchor: 2-column card with discipline-specific examples. PRIMARY (left, green) — first-hand, original evidence from the time/event/person. HISTORY examples: letter, diary, newspaper from the time, photograph, treaty, oral-history transcript. SCIENCE examples: peer-reviewed research article, lab notebook, dataset. HUMANITIES examples: the novel/poem/play being studied, the speech being analyzed, the painting. SOCIAL SCIENCE examples: survey data, interview transcript, government statistics. SECONDARY (right, blue) — analyzes or interprets primary sources. HISTORY examples: scholarly book, encyclopedia entry, documentary, biography. SCIENCE examples: review article, science-news article, textbook. HUMANITIES examples: literary criticism, scholarly essay analyzing a poem, biography of the author. Bottom rule: 'What counts as primary DEPENDS on the discipline and the question. A 1950s newspaper is a SECONDARY source about the Civil War but a PRIMARY source about 1950s American attitudes toward the Civil War.' Print-ready 11x17.

M-7-F-RES-04-C Chart

MG-6 anchor displayed: 2-band card with LATERAL READING routine and CLICK RESTRAINT habit. Includes the 4-tab worked example. Print-ready 11x17.

MG-6 Chart

Lateral reading and click restraint anchor: 2-band card. BAND 1 — LATERAL READING: 'Don't read the source carefully UNTIL you've evaluated it. Open new tabs. Search the author's name. Search the publication's reputation. Search the claim made on the page — what do OTHER sources say about it?' Worked example: a student finds a site claiming X. They open 4 new tabs: 1) author's credentials, 2) publication's about page, 3) the claim itself, 4) competing claims. Now they can decide whether to trust the source. BAND 2 — CLICK RESTRAINT: 'Don't trust the top search result. The top result is often paid, advertised, or just SEO-optimized — not the most accurate. Scroll down. Read snippets first. Open 3-4 tabs before reading any one carefully.' Bottom rule: 'Lateral reading + click restraint = how working researchers actually evaluate digital sources.' Print-ready 11x17.

• Primary/secondary sort: with your partner, sort the 30-card deck into PRIMARY / SECONDARY / RELATIVE (depends on question) piles. Be ready to defend RELATIVE cards.

  scaffold MG-4 anchor; sort deck with discipline labels
• Lateral-reading drill: I will give you a digital source URL. With your partner, open 4 lateral tabs and document them on the tab-tracker worksheet. Reach a credibility verdict.

  scaffold Tab-tracker worksheet with 4 numbered slots; MG-6 anchor

• For 2 of your candidate sources: classify each as primary or secondary FOR YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION. Justify with one sentence.

• Restate: primary = first-hand; secondary = interpretive; classification depends on question and discipline. Lateral reading + click restraint = digital habits.
• Preview tomorrow's scholarly/popular/sponsored source distinction

• For 3 candidate sources, apply lateral reading. Open 4 tabs per source. Bring tab-tracker notes tomorrow.