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Teaching and Learning |
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Primary & Secondary Sources
The distinctions between primary and secondary sources can be ambiguous. An individual document may be a primary source in one context and a secondary source in another. Time is a defining element. For example, a recent newspaper article is not usually a primary source; but a newspaper article from the 1860's may be a primary source for civil war research.
Some examples of primary sources:
| Diaries, memoirs, letters |
| Official documents and records |
| Original manuscripts |
| Period newspapers |
| Legal cases, transcripts, minutes, hearings |
| Interviews, oral histories, personal narratives |
| Research data and reports |
| Statistics |
To locate primary sources in the library
- Do background reading in a specialized encyclopedia for your place/time period to locate key names, vocabulary or events.
- Search the Library Catalog by Keyword, using a primary source format word as one term and an event or person as another term. Truncating the format word is helpful to obtain both singular and plural:
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letter* and Lincoln
diar* and Civil War
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Find primary sources in the footnotes and bibliographies of secondary source books and articles.
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Browse the shelves in your subject area.
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To locate research data and reports in the sciences and social sciences, use one of the subject specific databases or indexes for that discipline.
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Consult a reference librarian for assistance
See http://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/writing_guides/welcome.htm for an excellent discussion on reading primary and secondary sources.
