What Are Primary Sources?

Primary sources are documents, images or artifacts that provide firsthand testimony or direct
evidence concerning an historical topic under research investigation. Primary sources are original
documents created or experienced contemporaneously with the event being researched. Primary
sources enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an
historical event or time period. A secondary source is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical
event or period after the event has occurred and, generally speaking, with the use of primary
sources. The same document, or other piece of evidence, may be a primary source in one
investigation and secondary in another. In the natural and social sciences, primary sources are
often empirical studies—research where an experiment was performed or a direct observation
was made. The results of empirical studies are typically found in scholarly articles or papers
delivered at conferences.The search for primary sources does not, therefore, automatically
include or exclude any format of research materials or type of records, documents, or
publications.

What Are Secondry Sources?

Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyze,
evaluate, summarize, and process primary sources. Secondary source
materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or
movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate
someone else's original research.

Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Source Secondary Source

 Art original artwork article critiquing the piece of art
book about the Underground
History slave diary
Railroad
book or article on a particular
Literature Poem
genre of poetry
essay on Native American land
Political Science Treaty
rights
Science or Social report of an original review of several studies on the
Sciences experiment same topic
videotape of a
Theater biography of a playwright
performance

Examples of primary source

 archives and manuscript material.
 photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, films.
 journals, letters and diaries.
 speeches.
 scrapbooks.
 published books, newspapers and magazine clippings published at the time.
 government publications.
 oral histories.

Examples of Secondary Sources

Sleeper, Jim. The First Forty Years : The Story of Old Newport, 1868-1908. Newport Beach, Calif.:
Irvine Company, 1968.
Raup, Hallock Floyd. The German colonization of Anaheim, California. Berkeley, Calif.: University of
California Press. 1932.
Barron, Hal S., et al. Citriculture and Southern California. San Francisco, Calif.: California Historical
Society, 1995.
Finney, Ben R. Surfing : a history of the ancient Hawaiian sport. San Francisco: Pomegranate
Artbooks, c1996.
A primary source is a first-hand or contemporary account of an event or topic. They are the most direct evidence of a
time or event because they were created by people or things that were there at the time or event. These sources
have not been modified by interpretation and offer original thought or new information. Primary sources are original
materials, regardless of format.

Letters, diaries, minutes, photographs, artifacts, interviews, and sound or video recordings are examples of primary
sources created as a time or event is occurring. Oral histories, newspaper or journal articles, and memoirs or
autobiographies are examples of primary sources created after the event or time in question but offering first-hand
accounts.

Primary sources may be transformed from their original format into a newer one, such as when materials are
published or digitized, but the contents are still primary. There are many primary sources available online today, but
many more are still available in their original format, in archives, museums, libraries, historical sites, and elsewhere.

Secondary sources usually use primary sources and offer interpretation, analysis, or commentary. These resources
often present primary source information with the addition of hindsight or historical perspective. Common examples
include criticisms, histories, and magazine, journal, or newspaper articles written after the fact. Some secondary
sources may also be considered primary or tertiary sources - the definition of this term is not set in stone.

Tertiary sources are further developments of secondary sources, often summaries of information found in primary
and secondary sources and collecting many sources together. Some examples of tertiary sources are encyclopedias
and textbooks. Again, this term is not set in stone - some sources may be both secondary and tertiary.

Secondary sources are works that analyze, assess or interpret an historical event, era, or
phenomenon, generally utilizing primary sources to do so. Secondary sources often offer a review or
a critique. Secondary sources can include books, journal articles, speeches, reviews, research
reports, and more. Generally speaking, secondary sources are written well after the events that are
being researched. However, if an individual writes about events that he or she experienced first hand
many years after that event occurred, it is still considered a primary source.