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This brief guide is designed to help students and researchers find and evaluate primary sources available online. Keep in mind as you use this website, the Web is always changing and evolving. If you have questions, please consult your instructor or librarian. Primary sources are the evidence of history, original records or objects created by participants or observers at the time historical events occurred or even well after events, as in memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include but are not limited to: letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, maps, speeches, interviews, documents produced by government agencies, photographs, audio or video recordings, born-digital items (e.g. emails), research data, and objects or artifacts (such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons). These sources serve as the raw materials historians use to interpret and analyze the past. Additional Explanations and Examples of Primary SourcesTo see if these books are in a library near you, click on the title to access WorldCat. Benjamin, Jules R. A Student’s Guide to History. 12th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. Brundage, Anthony. Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and Writing. 5th ed. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. Cullen, Jim. Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Kitchens, Joel D. Librarians, Historians, and New Opportunities for Discourse: A Guide for Clio’s Helpers. Santa Barbara, Calif: Libraries Unlimited, 2012. Presnell, Jenny L. The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. Salevouris, Michael J, and Conal Furay. The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide. 4th ed. Chichester, UK: WIley-Blackwell, 2015. Turabian, Kate L., Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers. 8th ed. Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013. Williams, Robert Chadwell. The Historian’s Toolbox: A Student’s Guide to the Theory and Craft of History. 3rd ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2015. Image Credits and Sources
Curtis, Edward S. Gathering Seeds--Coast Pomo, 1924. Edward S. Curtis Collection. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. Accessed September 20, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/ecur/item/2002695450/. Britton & Rey. Chinese Belle and Child, Chinatown, San Francisco. Postcard, n.d. Online Archive of California/California Historical Society. Accessed September 20, 2015. http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb829005x0/?docId=hb829005x0&brand=oac4&layout=printable-details. Dunlap, Kate. “Overland Trails - Biographies.” Trails of Hope: Overland Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869. BYU Harold B. Lee Library Digital Collections. Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. Accessed September 20, 2015. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/Biographies/id/10/rec/1. CreditsWritten in 2015 by a sub-committee of the Instructional and Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Services History Section in the American Library Association. Sub-committee members: Shelley Arlen, University of Florida Smathers Libraries Eileen M. Bentsen, Baylor University Libraries (Co-Chair) Melissa F. Gonzalez, University of West Florida Libraries Julie Higbee, University of North Georgia Libraries Joel D. Kitchens, Texas A&M University Libraries Olga Perkovic, McMaster University Library (Co-Chair) Julienne L. Wood, Noel Memorial Library, LSU Shreveport Send comments regarding the content on this page to [email protected]. We regret we are unable to answer questions regarding finding, using, or copyright on primary sources; please ask your local librarian or teacher about any such questions. When you do research, you have to gather information and evidence from a variety of sources. Primary sources provide raw information and first-hand evidence. Examples include interview transcripts, statistical data, and works of art. A primary source gives you direct access to the subject of your research. Secondary sources provide second-hand information and commentary from other researchers. Examples include journal articles, reviews, and academic books. A secondary source describes, interprets, or synthesizes primary sources. Primary sources are more credible as evidence, but good research uses both primary and secondary sources. What is a primary source?A primary source is anything that gives you direct evidence about the people, events, or phenomena that you are researching. Primary sources will usually be the main objects of your analysis. If you are researching the past, you cannot directly access it yourself, so you need primary sources that were produced at the time by participants or witnesses (e.g. letters, photographs, newspapers). If you are researching something current, your primary sources can either be qualitative or quantitative data that you collect yourself (e.g. through interviews, surveys, experiments) or sources produced by people directly involved in the topic (e.g. official documents or media texts). A secondary source is anything that describes, interprets, evaluates, or analyzes information from primary sources. Common examples include:
When you cite a secondary source, it’s usually not to analyze it directly. Instead, you’ll probably test its arguments against new evidence or use its ideas to help formulate your own.
The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:
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Primary and secondary source examplesExamples of sources that can be primary or secondaryA secondary source can become a primary source depending on your research question. If the person, context, or technique that produced the source is the main focus of your research, it becomes a primary source.
If you are researching the causes of World War II, a recent documentary about the war is a secondary source. But if you are researching the filmmaking techniques used in historical documentaries, the documentary is a primary source.
If your paper is about the novels of Toni Morrison, a magazine review of one of her novels is a secondary source. But if your paper is about the critical reception of Toni Morrison’s work, the review is a primary source.
If your aim is to analyze the government’s economic policy, a newspaper article about a new policy is a secondary source. But if your aim is to analyze media coverage of economic issues, the newspaper article is a primary source. How to tell if a source is primary or secondaryTo determine if something can be used as a primary or secondary source in your research, there are some simple questions you can ask yourself:
Primary vs secondary sources: which is better?Most research uses both primary and secondary sources. They complement each other to help you build a convincing argument. Primary sources are more credible as evidence, but secondary sources show how your work relates to existing research. Tertiary sources are often used in the first, exploratory stage of research. What do you use primary sources for?Primary sources are the foundation of original research. They allow you to:
If you don’t use any primary sources, your research may be considered unoriginal or unreliable. Secondary sources are good for gaining a full overview of your topic and understanding how other researchers have approached it. They often synthesize a large number of primary sources that would be difficult and time-consuming to gather by yourself. They allow you to:
When you conduct a literature review or meta analysis, you can consult secondary sources to gain a thorough overview of your topic. If you want to mention a paper or study that you find cited in a secondary source, seek out the original source and cite it directly. Remember that all primary and secondary sources must be cited to avoid plagiarism. You can use Scribbr’s free citation generator to do so! Is a newspaper article a primary or secondary source?
Articles in newspapers and magazines can be primary or secondary depending on the focus of your research. In historical studies, old articles are used as primary sources that give direct evidence about the time period. In social and communication studies, articles are used as primary sources to analyze language and social relations (for example, by conducting content analysis or discourse analysis). If you are not analyzing the article itself, but only using it for background information or facts about your topic, then the article is a secondary source.
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
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