Steps for reading secondary sources:

- 1. Pre-read. Before you start reading a secondary source, look at its title and its Table of Contents. What is the author trying to tell you about the secondary source? What can you expect to read about? What time period will this take place in? What will be the major topics or themes? You can tell what a good work of history is about largely from the title and table of contents.
- 2. Skim for argument. The purpose of skimming is to identify an argument or major claims. Historians, and many other writers, often write in predictable ways.
- a. For a book, authors put their major points in the introduction/preface and the conclusion/epilogue. The beginning and end of each chapter should lay out its major points. Stay in these until you understand what the book is trying to accomplish.
- b. Look for “I” statements, such as “I will argue” or “While researching this topic, I found…” Those are often revealing.
- c. Before you start reading a chapter, look over its beginning and end to see if you can grasp what the chapter’s major point is.
- d. One technique you might consider is to start reading a paragraph and then move on once you understand the point of that paragraph. Many paragraphs are organized to simply make a claim in the first sentence and then support it with evidence. For the purposes of the skim, understanding that claim is enough.
- e. Skimming should help you decide what parts of the book/chapter/article to read most carefully and which parts to read more quickly.
- 3. Slow read for evidence and narrative. Once you have identified the major points through skimming, read it.
- a. Read actively: Take notes. Ask questions. Engage in a conversation with the author. Annotate the book. Don’t expect to remember everything on your own.
- b. If you feel that you understand an author’s argument or evidence, or that he or she is being repetitive, it’s okay to skim through a paragraph or section. If you’re reading actively and intelligently, you don’t need to read every word on every page.
- c. Don’t get hung up on things you don’t understand. Make note of them and ask about them in class or over email.
- d. At the end of a section or chapter, look over your notes or annotations. Take additional notes summing up what you’ve learned. You’re better off taking time to make notes at the end of a reading rather than taking exhaustive notes throughout.
- 4. Post-read. Evaluate the reading. What did you learn? Why does it matter? Do you agree with the argument?
- a. Write yourself a quick summary in a few sentences. What story does the reading tell? How does it relate to the course? What’s the argument?

Lazy and active reading: Have you ever read something and then realized that you weren’t paying attention the whole time? Simply passing your eyes over every word on the page, without thinking about it, is “lazy reading.” It might make you feel like you’ve read the assignment, but it doesn’t accomplish much. Instead, engage in the kind of active reading outlined above. That means reading with a purpose: pause to take notes or ask questions, annotate pause to look up words or references that you don’t understand, skim through repetitive sections, spend more time on meaningful sections. Reading is a conversation between you and the author. Ask them questions, challenge them, and don’t take everything they say for granted.