It is important for students to understand the distinction between primary and secondary sources, a distinction some students may not have been taught in their earlier education.
The difference between a primary source and a secondary source is a matter of how far removed the author of a piece is from the actual event being described.
If an author is producing an original work—such as a book or essay—or describing something first hand, that is typically considered a primary source. If an author is communicating the experiences, opinions, and stories told by others, that is a second hand, or secondary source.
Primary sources are contemporary accounts of an event, written by someone who experienced or witnessed the event in person, first hand. Primary sources often include original documents and original source materials, such as diaries, letters, memoirs, journals, speeches, manuscripts, essays, and longer book-length publications.
Newspaper and magazine articles and reports (as long as they were written soon after the fact and not as historical accounts), photographs, audio or video recordings, research reports in the natural or social sciences, and original literary or theatrical works, can be primary sources. Constitutions, laws, public policies, and public pronouncements can serve as primary sources.
Secondary sources are sources of information coming from people who were at least one step removed from the event or phenomenon under review, who did not witness or observe the event being described, who did not write or produce the original source being described.
When Plato writes a book and titles it The Republic, that is a primary source. When later scholars write essays and books commenting about Plato’s Republic, those later essays and books are secondary sources.
In some unusual instances, a piece of writing can be both primary and secondary. Thomas Aquinas, for example, wrote a series of extended commentaries on several of Aristotle’s treatises, including Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is a primary source. Aquinas’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics is a secondary source because it is commenting on a prior, earlier primary source. At the same time, many scholars would consider Aquinas’s commentary itself to be a primary source because it includes original insights and arguments that are not merely the same as what Aristotle argued. Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, therefore, can be considered both primary and secondary, simultaneously.
Another example would be Livy’s History of Rome and Machiavelli’s commentary on it. Between 27 and 9 BC, the Roman historian Titus Livius wrote what was at that time an unmatched and comprehensive account of Rome, which came to be known as Livy’s History of Rome and is a good example of a primary source.
Many centuries later, the Italian writer and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli wrote an extended commentary that he titled Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy’s History of Rome, now popularly referred to simply as Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy.
Machiavelli’s book, The Discourses, is both a secondary source—it presents a commentary on Livy’s earlier original work—and it is also widely regarded as a primary source in itself because Machiavelli uses his commentaries on Livy as an opportunity to present his own original political philosophy.
In sum, secondary source materials provide additional context, interpret, assign value to, conjecture upon, and draw conclusions about primary sources. These are usually in the form of essays and books, but may include radio or television documentaries. Some unusually important works can be both primary and secondary, but these rare outliers, not the norm.
EXAMPLES:
Primary Source: The Declaration of Independence
Secondary Source: Carl Becker’s book, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
Primary Source: Personal letters written by soldiers during the American Revolution
Secondary Source: Gordon Wood’s book, The American Revolution: A History
Primary Source: The Emancipation Proclamation
Secondary Source: Allen Guelzo’s book, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America
Primary Sources: Letters from Union and Confederate soldiers; speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis; general orders issued by Union and Confederate army commanders
Secondary Source: Ken Burns’ nine-part documentary movie, “The Civil War”
FAQ
No. Waypoints is not a lesson-plan warehouse. It is a curated library of primary sources paired with tutorials that deepen content knowledge and strengthen instruction. There are no student-facing lesson-plans; there are tutorials for teachers. For teachers, Waypoints is more like graduate school than a set of prepared lesson plans.
The Home Plan is ideal for individual learners and homeschooling families.
Organizer and Educator accounts can access the tutorials. Student accounts cannot.
Waypoints is a digital platform for learning and teaching built around beautifully published Primary Source Documents and Teacher Tutorials that reinforce selected Key Ideas of Liberty.
The Home Plan is $199 per year and includes an Organizer account, up to two Educator accounts, and up to four Student accounts.
Yes. Many people use the Home Plan simply for their own access to the Library and Tutorials. If you are a lifelong learner, the Home Plan is for you.
No. The purchase process automatically creates your Organizer account, which includes full access to all Waypoints content.
A Custom Plan is for schools, organizations, or other users whose needs are not fully met by a Home Plan or an Academy Plan. It can include a tailored combination of Educator and Student accounts. Please contact us for a Custom Plan proposal.
Student accounts can access the Library of primary source documents.
Yes, please do! We encourage teachers to use Tutorial content, written or video, any way they find helpful.
The Academy Plan is designed for schools, school districts, and other educational organizations.
For schools and districts, pricing is based on student enrollment. For non-school organizations and businesses, pricing is based on membership or staff size.
Please use the Contact Us page to discuss pricing, onboarding, and implementation.
Educators receive tutorials that illuminate the documents, deepen subject-matter knowledge, and support stronger classroom instruction.
You can go to the Waypoints Library and see the list of titles we have curated stretching across subjects such as American history, political thought, philosophy, economics, and citizenship.
Not yet. Additional titles are being prepared and published on a rolling basis. We will let members know when as more documents are published and uploaded to the Library.
Yes. Waypoints is designed to enrich and elevate existing instruction, especially in history, civics, government, and related courses. A teacher does not need to abandon the textbooks, lesson plans, or other curricula materials that have been used for past instruction. Waypoints is designed as an add-on to the materials teachers have been using and assigning to students.
