In Praise of Secondary Sources
Photo by Mari Potter on Unsplash
Was it Benjamin Franklin who made the quip that the main advantage of going to college is that it teaches you how to walk into a room? While the terms might be a little dated (I’m still not sure if I walk into rooms in a sufficiently genteel way), the critique, of course, is familiar enough: formal education is more about credentialing and the transfer of social class privilege than meaningful learning.
As a freelance editor, I often think of that line of critique. I can usually guess a person’s education from their first email, though that typically has nothing to do with their vocabulary or grammar. In terms of the prose itself, certain habits immediately make clear if someone has been socialized into “high-minded” conventions. Simple stuff can stand out: using “data” as a singular noun in formal writing or referring to authors using their first rather than last name (“As Bob (2009) argues...”) send a definite message. Sometimes there’s a good reason for why things are done one way rather than another, but that isn’t always the case. And, ultimately, whether there’s a good reason for the practice or not, there’s often a certain snob factor at work here. A least some of that stuff is the prose equivalent of Franklin’s (assuming it was Franklin’s) sense of walking into a room the right way.
Of course, it’s not all about snobbery and manners. As often as not, issues in style reflect real difficulties in conception. Certain language can tip off even the most novice of educators that the student hasn’t done the reading and literally doesn’t know what they’re talking about (student term paper: “Derrida’s smart book is about hospitality and cosmopolitanism. But what is the relationship between these two abstract concepts? Surely there is some illuminating connection.” Translation: “I haven’t done the reading in weeks and wrote this during an all-nighter while still somewhat hungover”).
Beyond the prose itself, certain habits in writing are indicative of sophisticated thinking. It’s probably a good idea to avoid the classic logical fallacies. Separating correlation from causation as much as possible can’t hurt (at least until you enter the semi-advanced phase of indicating that you’re “beyond” the conventions). Knowing where and when to insert a citation can reflect not only knowledge of scholarly conventions but also a deeper understanding of when and what type of evidence is needed. This stuff is about good thinking more than good fashion.
Amongst these more substantive habits, the use of secondary sources might be my favorite. What is a secondary source? The old quip is it’s a secondary source until it’s been cited enough times. Jokes aside, a secondary source is a source about another source. Plato’s Republic is a primary source (something tells me that one might have been cited enough to have crossed the threshold into “primary source” territory), but a commentary on Plato’s Republic would count as a secondary source. Develop enough original thinking in your commentary and maybe it, too, can begin to look more like a primary source.
Arguably the higher you climb up the academic ladder, the more central secondary sources become. A good senior thesis is likely to include secondary sources; meanwhile, in most fields, a master’s thesis without secondary sources would be bizarre if not unthinkable. Knowing how to work with secondary sources is an advanced move: a sophisticated commentator will know where they position themselves in the literature by getting clear on where their work stands in relation to other interpretations. There arguably can be a hint of fashion here—who you cite can signal your intellectual commitments or the camp of which you are a part. But, of course, it goes far beyond that.
Reading commentaries on what you’re reading 10x’s your understanding. If reading a world-class book is like walking around the mind of a great thinker, then reading a good commentary is like a post-jaunt discussion with the most thoughtful of co-explorers. A good secondary source contextualizes the primary source, indicates its historical importance, highlights underappreciated dimensions of the work, calls out potential issues in method or reasoning, and signals unaddressed questions or nuances.
Reading secondary sources is a game-changer. Relying on social media posts or Wikipedia entries is a sure sign of dilettantism. We’ve all done it, and it has its time and place, but no one has ever developed a sophisticated understanding from such things. A more serious approach is to look to textbooks or a reliable overview. That’s great, but of course drilling down into primary sources is the next level. Now we’re talking. Primary sources are a sure sign someone is doing it for real, but it’s easy for even the most skilled thinker to reach crazy conclusions if they try to go it alone. Knowing how to find and identify high-quality secondary sources is a sure sign of rigor. I’ve never met a person who read secondary sources who wasn’t a sophisticated thinker.
Of course, secondary sources have their limitations. There’s a lot to be said for wrestling with a challenging source or problem on its own terms. Incorporating secondary sources too early can short-circuit the reasoning process, undermine creativity, and hinder sincere engagement with the topic. If not handled carefully, an over-reliance on secondary sources can enfeeble a thinker, leaving them overly dependent on others’ interpretations and opinions. Those are real problems.
Still, none of that changes the fact that the use of secondary sources is a sure sign of an enlivened mind. None of us develop our thoughts in a vacuum. Our best ideas come from engaging with others’ best ideas, and secondary sources are much of how that is done.
To return to Franklin’s point, we don’t all care about the proper way to walk into a room. The punk rock among us may choose to spit on the floor. However, the intellectual self-defense of knowing how to vet claims, wade through the research on a topic, and develop informed opinions is universally important. There’s a lot of junk woven into formal education, but it’s not all fashion and convention. In this case, it’s worth taking a page from scholarly practice.
Assuming, of course, I’m not misremembering that it was Franklin who made that remark. Maybe I should check a secondary source.