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Chapter 4 · Educational
How to Use a Secondary Source
You don’t read a secondary source cover to cover. You read it to answer the question in front of you — and you treat its footnotes as the most valuable thing on the page, because they’re your bridge to the primary authority.
- 1Navigate by the table of contents or index, never page one. Jump to the section your question lives in.
- 2Stop the moment your question is answered. You’re mining, not reading.
- 3The footnotes are the point. Each citation is a candidate answer to your next question — the bridge from where you are to the primary authority.
- 4Know when to leave. The moment the source points you to the controlling case or statute, your question has become a focusing question — follow the citation out.
Try it: below is a (fictional) encyclopedia entry. For the question shown, click the footnote on the sentence that answers it. Change the question from the menu and do it again — the right footnote moves with the question.
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