AP US History · Exam guide

AP US History Sourcing and Complexity: How to Earn the Last Analysis Points

Sourcing and complexity are the two analysis points that separate a good essay from a top score. Sourcing asks you to explain why a document's author, audience, purpose, or situation matters to your argument. Complexity asks you to show that the history is not simple. This guide builds both on two Lincoln documents from 1863.

Sourcing: the four questions

Question	What to ask	Example
Historical situation	What was happening when this was written?	Issued in January 1863, in the middle of a civil war the Union was not clearly winning.
Audience	Who was it written for?	The Proclamation addressed the Union and the Confederacy and, in effect, the world. The Gettysburg Address was spoken to a crowd at a cemetery dedication, and printed for the nation.
Purpose	What was the author trying to do?	Lincoln needed a war measure he could defend as a military necessity, and a moral reason for the war that would hold the North together.
Point of view	What does this person think or want?	Lincoln was commander in chief and a politician who held a coalition together, not a neutral observer.

Document 1. Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863

all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free

Note the limit: it applied only to areas in rebellion, and Lincoln issued it as a war measure under his military authority.

Does not earn the pointLincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, so it shows what Lincoln thought about slavery.

It names the author but says nothing about why the author's situation or purpose matters to an argument.

Earns the pointBecause Lincoln issued the Proclamation as commander in chief and applied it only to areas in rebellion, it was both a moral statement and a military measure, which shows that the war's aims were changing, but also that the federal government had not yet committed to ending slavery everywhere.

It ties the author's role and purpose to a specific claim about change and its limits.

Document 2. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom

Spoken at the dedication of a cemetery for soldiers killed four months earlier. The audience was a crowd of mourners and, through newspapers, the whole country.

Complexity: five ways to earn it

Qualify: show where a claim is true and where it is not (the Proclamation freed some people on paper and none in places the Union army did not hold).
Corroborate: show that two documents or developments support each other (the Proclamation's aim and the Gettysburg Address's "new birth of freedom").
Explain more than one cause or effect, and say how they interacted.
Connect across periods: how did these words shape the Reconstruction amendments, or the arguments of the 1950s and 1960s?
Compare a change with a continuity: freedom expanded in law, while in practice it was restricted after 1877.

A complexity sentenceAlthough the Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address redefined the war as a fight for freedom, the Union's racial attitudes and the withdrawal of federal troops in 1877 limited how far that redefinition reached in practice.

It modifies the argument with evidence from later in the period. A sentence like this must be sustained across the essay, not left as a single line.

Common mistakes

Writing "Lincoln was biased" without saying how bias affects the argument.
Summarizing the document and calling it sourcing.
Listing the four categories (situation, audience, purpose, point of view) without using one.
Adding a complexity sentence at the end that the rest of the essay does not support.

Frequently asked questions

How many documents must I source?

At least two documents, and for each you must explain how the point of view, purpose, situation, or audience matters to your argument.

Does complexity require a separate paragraph?

No. It is shown through how you handle the evidence across the whole essay, such as qualifying a claim or connecting it to other periods.

Is sourcing the same as summarizing a document?

No. Sourcing explains why the author or situation affects what the document can show.

Is Lincoln's wording public domain?

Yes, the texts of both documents are public domain, and the quotations here are short.

Where can I find the official scoring rules?

Exam formats change a little from year to year, so check the current course and exam description on the College Board site before test day.

Keep practicing

The AP US History course has five practice prompts for the DBQ and LEQ, plus short-answer sets, with a writing space that scores your response against the 7-point and 6-point rubrics. These free lessons also build the skills the free-response section tests:

See the AP US History course Free lessons and lesson list

More AP US History guides (7)

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AP US History Multiple-Choice Guide: 55 Questions in 55 Minutes

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