Understand what"primary" & "secondary" sources mean
Primary sources
Primary sources are records of firsthand accounts (autobiographies, documentary history books, interviews in contemporary newspapers, government reports).
Primary sources provide us with a real sense of what was happening with a person, event or specific period in time.
Secondary sources
Secondary sources are secondhand accounts which analyse and interpret past events usingprimary sources (books, textbooks, journal articles).
Secondary sources provide us with historical definitions and overviews; they are usually written at a much later time after the historical event or era and draw together a range of useful comments and other relevantinformation.
Recognise your sources in the appropriate context
Sometimes it can be hard to decide if something may be a primary source or not. Sometimes a secondary source can also serve as a primary source, depending on the context in which you're viewing it and wanting to use it.
For example, a well known author writes a journal article discussing a particular historical event; their article would be considered a secondary source about that historical event. Years later a biographer is researching the life of that author; in this context that same journal article would serve as a primary source example of that author's written works.
Chances are, that you're familiar with a variety of primary and secondary sources and use them in everyday life. However, locating primary sources about an academic topic can sometimes be difficult.
Primary sources
Primary sources are first-hand accounts of an event and are created during the time that event took place. They can also be created retrospectively at a later date by a participant in those events. They are original documents and usually don't describe or analyse other documents. They can also be creative works.
Some examples of primary sources are:
- speeches
- laws and court documents
- diaries, memoirs, autobiographies and letters
- works of art
- novels and plays
- original research and data
- historical newspapers
So how can primary sources be used for research?
They can be used as a focal point of a discussion about events. They can be used to back up claims or criticisms. They can be used as evidence for series and research, and they can be used to gain historical perspectives on the topic.
Secondary sources
Secondary sources are written by scholars and observers after the fact and interpret or analyse primary sources or events. These sources are at least one step removed from what they are describing. Some examples of secondary sources are:
- textbooks
- encyclopedias
- essays and reviews
- magazines or journal articles which analyze events or ideas
- books which provide a summary of events or synthesize information for many primary sources
So how are secondary sources used?
They can be used to get background information and understand the scope of a topic. They can be used to see what others have discussed or get opinions. You can use them to learn how recent events affect or fit into the larger picture and they can help you understand the significance of events, data, works of literature and art.
Example
Let's look at an example: a primary source for a paper about the placebo effect could be data from a medical trial which is published in an academic journal. Secondary sources for this topic could include books about medication, the placebo effect and health in general, or websites which define various anxiety disorders.
One thing to keep in mind is that a source's classification as either "primary" or "secondary" can change depending on the topic that you're studying. For example, if you are writing about how the news is being represented on the internet, a news site like CNN might be considered a primary source. If you're studying news on the internet, cnn.com represents the object that you're studying.
However, if you're writing about political elections and you find an article on cnn.com that analyses them, the article will be considered a secondary source, since, in this case, you're studying the elections, an article on cnn.com is one step removed from your topic.
Remember...
For an effective research paper, try to use both primary and secondary sources that are an original source of data, historical information or creative works, as well as secondary sources which summarize, analyse or comment on ideas or events.
