When we are in school, we are often taught, at a certain point, to write a research paper. A lot of the time, the paper has five paragraphs and is written in the form of a persuasive essay. Opening, body, closing. We find some books or articles to cite in one of the many methods of citation, and we call it a day. Our teacher warns us about the nasty phantom of plagiarism.

When we write our research paper, the same teacher will tell us about primary and secondary sources to cite. Primary sources are texts written by the author, or documents from the same period as the author. For instance, primary sources for a paper on 19th century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning might include her poetry, like Sonnets from the Portuguese, or letters she wrote to her husband Robert Browning. Secondary sources for E. Browning might include a biography on Browning, written five years ago, or an academic book on Victorian poets.

In philosophy, primary sources are essential. If you attend a philosophy class, you will come face to face with Plato’s The Republic or Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. You will be forced to read some of the most boring and fascinating (sometimes at the same time!) texts, guided by a professor who has been doing this for a very long time. 

For a research paper, you will definitely want to know what someone else who knows things said about Plato, but you need to know what Plato says, as Plato.

But primary sources are not just for stuffy libraries and scholastic yawnfests. Let’s discover five reasons why reading primary sources is essential to our lives, outside of academic work, online and off.

1. Online Mis/disinformation

Our first reason makes a lot of sense right now. If you’ve ever spent more than five minutes online, you will know that people who post things don’t always post the truth. Often this happens in AI slop and memes, as well as constantly reposted posts without a clear source. With enough virality, people can make up almost anything they want.

And this is where misinformation and disinformation come in. Misinformation is the practice our elderly grandmas have of reposting something that is not true, without any intention of harming anyone. Nowadays, this can happen like posting ridiculous, obviously AI images and worrying about the people or pets in them. Think of the many little old ladies who have reposted paragraphs about how they are able to “fix” their Facebook feed.

Disinformation, on the other hand, is not simply annoying. It is insidious. Disinformation is planted to make people question the veracity of something that happened or the way something works. Disinformation might appear in the manner of making up a “fact” about a marginalized group so that more people can jump on the hate wagon.

In either type, getting to the bottom of things is important. For instance, did Edgar Allan Poe really say, “Tell me every terrible thing you did and let me love you anyway”? It’s a quote that makes the rounds every Halloween, and should you search it, you will find many results attributing it to Poe. However, if you look deeper, you will find this quote comes from contemporary poet Sade Zabala.

You learn through research, but you also learn through knowing the primary source material. You know, after reading a little Poe, the way he writes, the cadences in his language. You know how someone from the 19th century writes versus the 21st. The truth is important.

2. You Can’t Counter Other People’s Arguments If You Don’t Know the Source

You’re online and you see some ragebait that is pissing you off. You bite your lip and prepare your fingers for the angry (and obviously very righteous) reply. But here’s the thing: you have never, ever read the thing they are talking about. You only know that you hate it and it’s wrong. So you come into the conversation prepared with every No you’ve ever wanted to throw, and it falls very, very flat.

You’re coming into a conversation riddled with people who are experts on the subject, who eat and drink the author you so vehemently despise. So you have no valid points, other than, “Eh, I don’t really like her. She obviously only writes badly, and is going to ruin the thing I do love.” When asked if you have even read this author, you shrug and sheepishly reply to the negative.

Here’s the thing. If you want to strengthen your arguments so that you can better discourse with people online and off, whether about your interests or things that bother you, you need to know about the subject. And reading the primary source is going to help you in this, and also make you look less like a fool when you share your opinion.

Step into a conversation where three friends are talking about how they think the television show Supernatural deals with the eternal battle of good and evil. If you’ve never seen the show (like me), you are not going to be prepared to say really anything of note, other than maybe acknowledging you know the two leads, and that they are spooky brothers. You have nothing to contribute otherwise.

With primary sources, the issue is similar. If you have not read the original text, the thing you say or type about the original text is going to end up showcasing not your cool opinions, but your blatant ignorance. And online, this will be eternal.

Two Philosophers by José de Ribera (1591-1652), courtesy of Wiki Commons, public domain

3. Even If You Disagree, It’s Important to Understand Why

With online ragebait common these days, our opinions have never differed so hard and so vehemently from each other. Our politics are polarized in ways they haven’t in memory, and we seem to be incredibly set in our views. Scan social media for a moment and you will see the frustrations and divisiveness thrown around like so many dodgeballs. 

We get so very lost in our echo chambers. We can’t help but think our opinions and beliefs about the world around us are the only ones that matter, and those who disagree with us are obviously morally and inherently inferior or evil. We hyperfocus on the thing we believe in, and we do not question if it could be otherwise, or why people might think or believe differently.

This is something that happens time and time again with the work of Marx, as an example. The hypercapitalists online will rail against Marx, but only know the surface of 20th century history, if anything at all about communism. He’s obviously evil because the American government has been telling us this for about a century.

If you were so invested in Randian capitalism that you want to reject anything related to Marx, shouldn’t you know what, in fact, you are rejecting? 

Knowing thy enemy is as important as being an expert on the thing you love. It bolsters your knowledge but can also strengthen your reasons why you find the thinker repugnant, or maybe it will (gasp!) add some nuance to your thoughts on the matter. It might change your mind, but it might not. But you might come out understanding yourself and your beliefs a lot more clearly.

4. Context Is Key: Understanding Oft-Quoted Material

Let’s look at one quote that had been making the rounds a year or so ago, and every now and again pops up. According to the internet, Plato scribbles, “Your silence is your consent” or “Your silence gives consent,” depending on the translation. Naturally, in our political climate, this has been taken to mean that, if you are silent on the matter of political injustice, you are giving consent to some awful people to do some awful things. If you’ve not read Plato, this sounds super badass and an awesome finger to wag.

However, if you know anything about Plato, you know that he likes to write dialogues between people, and that Socrates likes to talk sometimes. In the case of this quote, from the Apology, Socrates is having one of his famous discourses, but is speaking with another interlocutor. Since it’s his turn to talk, he is telling the court that is trying him, and a particular man, Meletus, about his own spiritual beliefs, part of the reason he’s being put on trial. He talks about his beliefs and, as he usually does when he’s talking, he interacts with his interlocutor by saying, “Oh, you’re silent, so obviously you agree with what I’m saying.”

It’s an aside, like many of the asides Socrates makes in his dialogues. There isn’t much more to it than that. But if you didn’t know the source material, you would think, “Wow, that’s one of the most profound, French existentialist-like things Plato has ever written!” It’s not. Plato has much better stuff, if you read the source material.

Context is key. Whether you’re quoting the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, or Friedrich Nietzsche, the context of the quote is just as important as the quote itself. Otherwise, you could easily make Nietzsche the Live Laugh Love posterboy, or the Bible a treatise on the nature of cleanliness during menstruation.

5. You Can Come to Your Own Conclusions and Think for Yourself

One upping your friends aside, reading primary sources allows you to make your own conclusions, and you can think for yourself. You do not have to rely on people who say they are authorities on the matter (whether they are or are not). You do not have to scan Reddit for the answers. You do not have to hope your friend from college knows about Simone de Beauvoir. You can engage with the texts yourself.

It’s a bit alarming to see how many people seem to run through life with as little intellectual curiosity as they can manage. They are not stupid or bad. They just don’t care to know, don’t care to reach out to find this knowledge. And perhaps this has something to do with a culture that inclines itself to walking through life while being passively fed information and accepting it without much thought.

If you’ve ever wondered if the narrative is false, read a primary source. If you’ve ever wondered what a text is really like, read a primary source. If you’ve ever wondered what you should really think about something, read a primary source. If you’ve ever wanted to find out for yourself, read a primary source.

Stay curious and work your intellect like a bro would work at the gym. At the end of the day, reading and understanding primary sources may build your intellectual background, and may have the side effect of independent thinking, which is a precious thing in the days of AI slop.