WRI 208: Discovering New Pasts: Source Types and Evaluation

The Standard Definition

In historical writing, a primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types of primary sources include:

* ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS (excerpts or translations acceptable): Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records
* CREATIVE WORKS: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art
* RELICS OR ARTIFACTS: Pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings

Examples of primary sources include:

* Diary of Anne Frank - Experiences of a Jewish family during WWII
* The Constitution of Canada - Canadian History
* A journal article reporting NEW research or findings
* Weavings and pottery - Native American history
* Plato's Republic - Women in Ancient Greece

For more examples, visit this guide.

What is a secondary source?
A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources are one or more steps removed from the event. Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources in them. 

Examples of secondary sources include:

* PUBLICATIONS: Textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias
* A journal/magazine article which interprets or reviews previous findings
* A history textbook
* A book about the effects of WWI
Another Possible Usage

PRIMARY SOURCE (more frequently PRIMARY TEXT) is sometimes used in a different sense in some types of classes. In a literature class, for example, the primary source might be a novel about which you are writing, and secondary sources those sources also writing about that novel (i.e., literary criticism). However, if you were writing about the literary criticism itself and making an argument about literary theory and the practice of literary criticism, some would use the term PRIMARY SOURCE to refer to the criticism about which you are writing, and secondary sources other sources also making theoretical arguments about the practice of literary criticism. In this second sense of primary source, whatever you are primarily writing ABOUT becomes the primary source, and secondary sources are those sources also writing about that source. Often this will be called the PRIMARY TEXT, but some people do use primary source with this meaning.

Tertiary Sources

Just so you can keep up with all the scholarly jargon about sources, a tertiary source is a source that builds upon secondary sources to provide information. The most common example is an encyclopedia. Consider a particular revolution as an historical event. All the documents from the time become primary sources. All the historians writing later produce secondary sources. Then someone reads those secondary sources and summarizes them in an encyclopedia article, which becomes a tertiary source. If someone then collected a bibliography of encyclopedia articles on the topic, that might be a quarternary source, but at that point the whole thing just becomes silly.

FROM: Kapoun, Jim. "Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A guide for library instruction." C&RL News (July/August 1998): 522-523.

• Identifying & Utilizing Historical Primary Sources

  Helpful guide from Steve Knowlton, History librarian

To identify primary source materials in the library catalog, look for the word sources within a subject term: e.g. perform a Subject (keyword) search: e.g. cultural sources; or, sources food, etc.

Additional Subject (keywords) or (regular) Keywords to bring up primary sources or books with primary source content include the following: (these are several examples of words that would identify a source as primary; some will lead to content that is visual in nature)

* caricatures and cartoons
* case studies
* charters
* charts, diagrams, etc.
* correspondence
* diaries
* documents
* early works
* illustrations
* interviews
* letters
* manuscripts
* maps
* oral history
* oratory
* pamphlets
* personal narratives
* pictorial works
* sources
* speeches
* transcripts

Firestone and Mudd Libraries comprise the Special Collections Department, which includes collections of unique or rare items like author manuscripts and other (unpublished) materials, letters, rare books, music manuscripts, works on paper (prints), coins, death masks, etc. There are great opportunities for you to work with original materials, some of which may never have been investigated or worked on before. Marquand also has an extensive and growing rare collection. You can browse its holdings here.

Check out the Guide to Topics (URL off-line; relevant topics will be made avail. soon); and the Finding Aid search (archival collections). While you can find many of these collections in the library catalog, you can search by keyword here across collections within the guides that exist to help you navigate what’s contained in collections of papers for an important author, company, statesman, woman, etc.

PUL Digital Library: click here. Take some time to browse for the unique and interesting content from Special Collections that has been digitized. 

Databases may also be good sources for primary source content of different kinds too (I encourage you to browse the databases by subject in general: there are some amazing resources here). One can browse our Database list by Subject at the top left, or search for a keyword (in title or description) in the search box at the upper right.

Works of art are primary sources. The "all-search on the main library website includes the PU Art Museum as a search facet. Museum websites in general can be useful places to search for information and images related to original objects. See lists for finding art museums at the very BOTTOM of this page.