Reading a Source: HIPP

In Primary and Secondary Sources you learned to ask who made a source and when. Now go one step further. Every source was made by a person, at a moment, for someone, for a reason. Historians call this sourcing. The AP U.S. History exam asks about four parts of it, which many teachers remember as HIPP.

The four HIPP questions.
Letter	Question	Ask yourself
H	Historical situation	What was going on when and where this was made?
I	Intended audience	Who was meant to read, hear or see it?
P	Purpose	Why was it made? What did the author want to happen?
P	Point of view	Who is the author, and how might their place in events shape what they say?

Key idea

HIPP asks why a source says what it says. The situation, the audience, the purpose and the author's point of view shape what a source includes, what it stresses and what it leaves out.

Why it works

A source is not a window onto the past; it is a message from one person to others. A general writes one way to his commander and another way to his family. Knowing the message's setting lets you use it fairly: you can trust it most on what the author was in a position to know and had little reason to bend, and read it more carefully where the author had a reason to persuade.

Tap each highlighted phrase to see how HIPP applies.

Worked example: Source the Columbus letter

Columbus wrote this letter on his voyage home in early 1493. Apply HIPP.

H: He had just made his first crossing of the Atlantic, paid for by the Spanish crown, and needed backing for more voyages.
I: A royal treasurer, Luis de Santángel, and through him King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
P: To announce success and claim the lands, so the monarchs would fund him again.
P: A Genoese sailor in Spain's service, sure he had reached Asia, eager to look successful.

Answer: The letter is reliable about where he sailed and what he claimed, and must be read with care where it praises the riches and ease of the "Indies."

Worked example: Audience changes tone

In October 1765 the Stamp Act Congress declared that colonists owed "the same allegiance to the crown" as people in Britain, and also that no taxes should be laid on them "but with their own consent." Why both?

H: Parliament had just passed the Stamp Act, a direct tax on the colonies.
I: The King and both houses of Parliament.
P: To win repeal of the tax without being treated as rebels.

Answer: Loyal words to a powerful audience made the protest harder to dismiss. The loyalty was also real: most colonists in 1765 wanted their rights inside the empire, not independence.

Common mistake

The most common slip is to summarize a source and stop. "Columbus says he found many islands" is a summary. Sourcing asks why he wrote it that way and for whom. The opposite slip is to throw out a source because it has a point of view. Every source has one; a biased source is still evidence, at least of what its author believed or wanted others to believe.

Reading a Source: HIPP

Practice

Builds on

Leads to

Sources and further reading