HIST 300: U.S.-Asia Cold War Diplomatic History

When consulting primary sources in your research, consider the following questions:

• Who is the author or creator?
• Who was their intended audience?
• Why was the document written?
• What context would the author have had? What context would the intended audience have had?
• Are there voices or perspectives that are prioritized or marginalized by the document?
• What evidence does the creator include?

Vertical reading is evaluating a source from content within the source.

Lateral reading is evaluating a source by checking against other sources.

For more information, check the Civic Online Reasoning project at Stanford University, or search for it and read for yourself!