One of the most important issues for those who research the history of learning is to determine how students learn and how they come to understand history. According to the authors, even though students may understand history differently, it is important to understand how students read, comprehend and interpret documents. There are three different levels when comprehending a text as described by the authors: verbatim representation of the text, the propositions of the text, and description of what the text is about rather than the features of texts themselves. Readers expect certain structures in text and use these as guideposts for understanding content. The authors purport that the comprehension of historical documents differs from other text as reading, evaluating and integrating historical documents is not fully captured by the situation model used by other types of text. The authors discuss how comprehending documents differs from other forms of general comprehension through a description of the situation model. They argue that a model of general comprehension does not and cannot adequately paint a picture of how students comprehend historical documents and events. They continue with a discussion of their research concerning college students’ evaluation and use of multiple documents about the Panama Canal. They discuss what students know about documents and how they evaluate the sources of information, and continue with a discussion of their results concerning how students use documentary evidence in their writings. The authors conclude that students need to have extensive knowledge of the sources they are reading, not only of the content but also the history of the author, the date of publication, the document type, etc. The authors discovered that students put their greatest trust in textbooks even though they recognize the varying characteristics of sources. Novice historians focus on the content of the source whereas the more experienced focus on the source parameters as well.