AP U.S. History · Free-response skill

Source a document: purpose, audience, point of view

The move. Source a document by naming its purpose and its intended audience, and explaining how the purpose shapes the words it uses.

How to do it

  1. Start with the source line, before the text. Who wrote it, when, where, and in what form: a law, a sermon, a book, a letter, a diary? The form and the place of printing often point to the audience.
  2. Purpose answers why it was written: to warn, persuade, justify, record, sell or win support. Look for a sentence where the author says it outright, or for words that push the reader toward a choice.
  3. Audience answers who was meant to read or hear it. A sermon preached in a Boston meetinghouse speaks first to that congregation; a law passed by a colonial assembly speaks to the colony's courts and officials.
  4. Point of view answers what position the author wrote from: a job, a faith, a class, a personal experience, a side in a dispute.
  5. The sourcing point is earned only by the link. Say how the purpose, audience or point of view shapes the content: what it stresses, what it leaves out, or why it uses strong words. Naming the purpose and stopping there is not enough.
  6. Purpose and point of view do not make a document false. They tell you how to weigh it alongside other evidence.

Practice prompt Try it

But the most important occasion for publishing this little book was the wretched and grievous condition of those who travel from Germany to this new land, and the outrageous and merciless proceeding of the Dutch man-dealers and their man-stealing emissaries; I mean the so-called newlanders, for they steal, as it were, German people under all manner of false pretenses, and deliver them into the hands of the great Dutch traffickers in human souls.

When the ships have landed at Philadelphia after their long voyage, no one is permitted to leave them except those who pay for their passage or can give good security; the others, who cannot pay, must remain on board the ships till they are purchased ... Every day Englishmen, Dutchmen and High-German people come from the city of Philadelphia and other places, ... and select among the healthy persons such as they deem suitable for their business, and bargain with them how long they will serve for their passage-money. When they have come to an agreement, it happens that adult persons bind themselves in writing to serve 3, 4, 5 or 6 years for the amount due by them, according to their age and strength.

Adapted from Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754, published in German in 1756; English translation by Carl Theodor Eben, 1898 (public domain)

Gottlieb Mittelberger was a German organist and schoolmaster who spent about four years in Pennsylvania. Use the excerpts and the source line to answer each part.

  1. Mittelberger names two things as the most important occasion for publishing his book: the condition of one group of people, and the conduct of another. Give both.
  2. Using the source line, name the land whose people he most likely wrote the book for.
  3. Give one name that the first excerpt uses for the people who lure or sell German emigrants.
  4. Explain how his reason for writing shows in the names he uses for these people.

Write each part, then check yourself against the checklist. Nothing you type here is saved or graded.

Check yourself and see a model answer

Checklist

Our own checklist of what a full answer does, one line per point. Tick each one your response earns.

0 of 4 points

Model answer, annotated

(a) He names the terrible suffering of Germans who emigrate, and the cruel, dishonest dealings of the newlanders, who trick Germans into going and hand them over to traffickers.

  • Point 1 Gives both: the suffering of German emigrants and the newlanders' dishonest dealings.

(b) He most likely wrote for the people of Germany, especially those who were thinking of emigrating.

  • Point 2 Names the country: Germany.

(c) He calls them man-stealing emissaries.

  • Point 3 Gives one of the first excerpt's names: man-stealing emissaries.

(d) Calling them man-stealers and traffickers in human souls paints them as criminals, which serves his aim of exposing them and warning Germans not to trust them.

  • Point 4 Says the harsh names expose these people and warn Germans against them.