Check out this video from the University of Guelph libraries for a quick introduction to primary and secondary sources. Or read the definitions below.
Primary source v secondary source
Key primary source collections
Evaluating Resources Citation & PlagiarismPrimary Sources can play an important role in the research process. This section will help you:
Check out this video from the University of Guelph libraries for a quick introduction to primary and secondary sources. Or read the definitions below.
Primary Sources
Primary sources are original records or objects that provide first hand testimony or direct evidence about an historical event or topic.
They are usually created by witnesses who experienced the events or conditions in question. Often these sources are created at the time the events occur, but primary sources can also include memoirs and oral histories recorded later.
Secondary Sources
Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyze, evaluate, and summarize primary sources. Secondary sources are created after the event in question and often present primary source information with the addition of historical perspective.
Common examples of secondary sources include articles in newspapers or popular magazines, books and articles found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else's original research.
Good reading is about asking questions of your sources. Even if you can't answer the questions, reading primary sources requires you to use your 'historical imagination'.
To help you analyze primary sources you can use the helpful acronym PAPER.
Use the list of questions below as a checklist to help you evaluate your primary sources. You can download a pdf version of the Primary Source Checklist.
Purpose
Who is the author? What is their place in society?
Why did they prepare this document? What's at stake for the author?
Do they have a thesis? What is it?
Argument
What is the text trying to do? How does it try to achieve this?
Who is the intended audience? How might this impact the author's strategy?
Is the author credible and reliable?
Presuppositions and values
How do the ideas and values in the source differ from the values of our age?
What preconceptions do we as readers bring to the text?
How might the differences in values impact the way we understand the text?
Evaluating Truth Content
How might this text support arguments you've read in other secondary sources?
What unintended information does the text reveal?
Which parts of the text are the author's interpretations? Which are historical 'facts'?
Relate
Compared to other sources, what ideas are repeated through them?
What are the major differences?
Which is more reliable and credible?
(adapted from Patrick Rael Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students.)
Digital Public Library of America
Access over 40 million cultural heritage items from libraries, archives, and museums around the US. Search the collection or check out their curated Primary Source Sets.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
LOC Digital Collections provides access to digitized American historical materials including images, maps, manuscripts, prints, posters, sound recordings, films and more!
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Contains 900,000 items digitized from the New York Public Library collections. Features prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, and more.
The National Archives is the nation's record keeper. It preserves and makes accessible important documents created by agencies of the United States federal government.
Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitised items – books, music, artworks and more – from archives, museums and libraries across Europe.
Online gateway to over 650,000 digital images from the Bodleian Library. The collections cover cultures around the world, spanning the Medieval period to the present.
A collaborative project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO to bring together rare and unique documents that tell the story of the world’s cultures.
You can also find a list of useful Primary Source collections arranged by subject area on our Primary Source Library Guide.
Think you know your primary sources from secondary sources? Test your knowledge with our short quiz!