LESSON SIX

Primary and Secondary Information 

When studying any resource, you will come across two types of information: primary and secondary. Primary information refers to the core content—the essential ideas or main points that the resource is focused on. This is the material you want to prioritize when studying, taking notes, and practicing, as it forms the foundation of your understanding.

Secondary information, on the other hand, consists of explanations, examples, context, or additional details that support or elaborate on the primary ideas. While not always crucial, secondary information often plays an important role in helping you understand the core concepts more deeply or see them from different perspectives. It can build a foundation, re-frame ideas, or provide insights that enrich your grasp of the subject.

Understanding the difference between primary and secondary information helps you focus your efforts on the most important content. However, it’s important not to dismiss secondary information outright. Sometimes these supporting details can be just as useful, especially as they contribute to the larger framework of the material and help clarify or reinforce the main points.

Examples of Primary and Secondary Information

Understanding the difference between primary and secondary information is only the beginning. To study effectively, you also want to quickly recognize and separate the two so you can decide what’s truly worth noting without wasting time. For example, in Sketch Every Day by Simone Grunewald, on page 26, she discusses The Habit of Sketching. She shares her personal experience about how trying to sketch every day helped her improve as an artist. Much of what she shares in this passage is secondary information—details that may or may not be useful to you depending on your own journey.

So instead of copying everything she says into your notes, your notes might look like a succinct bullet list.

The Benefits of Sketching:

  • Keeps you from getting rusty

  • Builds a better routine

  • Practice makes you faster

  • Gets your ideas out on paper

  • You improve more quickly

  • Builds your Visual Library

Sometimes it can be difficult to decide what examples you should be copying into your notes. So let’s look at two examples, one where the visual differences are clear, while one is less so.

The first example is from Drawing Basics and Video Game Art by Chris Solarski, pages 114 and 115. The simplistic drawings on the left hand side are the examples you are meant to copy, while the images on the right are simply there to help visualize the relationship between the different bones in the arm. 

Deciphering Primary and Secondary Imagery

Alternatively, there are times when distinguishing between primary and secondary imagery isn’t as straightforward. This can happen when the examples are all relatively simple or when primary and secondary visuals are mixed in the same spread.

For instance, in Sketch Every Day, pages 116 and 117 focus on drawing lips. At first glance, it might be difficult to tell which images are meant to be copied. In this case, the six portrait drawings aren’t the focus—they serve more as context. Since the subject is lips, the simpler lip studies are the ones you should be copying into your notes.