Information & the record
secondary source
An account describing or analyzing a primary source: a news story, a summary, an explainer, a research report. Useful, but one step removed.
In full
Secondary sources make records usable by selecting and explaining, and a good one cites the primary record so the reader can check it. The risks are compression and framing: what got left out of a summary is invisible in the summary. Treat a secondary source as a guide to the record rather than a substitute for it.
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A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.