Primary and Secondary Sources
Primary Sources
Primary sources are the "materials on a topic upon which subsequent interpretations or studies are based, anything from firsthand documents such as poems, diaries, court records, and interviews to research results generated by experiments, surveys, ethnographies, and so on."*
Primary sources are records of events as they are first described, without any interpretation or commentary. They are also sets of data, such as census statistics, which have been tabulated, but not interpreted.
Secondary Sources
Secondary sources, on the other hand, offer an analysis or a restatement of primary sources. They often attempt to describe or explain primary sources. Some secondary sources not only analyze primary sources, but use them to argue a contention or to persuade the reader to hold a certain opinion.
Examples of secondary sources include: dictionaries, encyclopaedias, textbooks, and books and articles that interpret or review research works.
Examples of primary and secondary sources:
|
Primary Source | Secondary Source |
|---|---|---|
Art |
Original artwork |
Article critiquing the piece of art |
History |
Slave diary |
Book about the Underground Railroad |
Literature |
Poem |
Treatise on a particular genre of poetry |
Political Science |
Treaty |
Essay on Native American land rights |
Theatre |
Videotape of a performance |
Biography of a playwright |
Copyright (c) 2005 by Susan Kelly, Wexford County Library Service.
Adapted and modified (5th December 2005) from TILT, Texas Information Literacy Tutorial. This material is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the TILT Open Publication Licence. (the latest version is presently available at http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu/yourtilt/).
