WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Primary vs SecondarySources

Primary SourcesAre either original materials created during the historical era you are researching or replicas of these materials.

Primary SourcesPresent an original work or original thinking, report a discovery or event experienced by the writer, or share newinformation.

Primary SourcesThese sources have not been interpreted or evaluated.

Examples of Primary SourcesArtifacts

• plant specimens, fossils, coins, pottery, tools, clothing, furniture (from that period under study)

Creative Works

• painting, sculpture, musical scores, poetry, novels, architecture

Documents & Recordings

• autobiographies, memoirs, letters, emails, diaries, speeches, interviews, oral histories, birth certificates, wills, patents, trial transcripts

Other

• market surveys; journal articles in peer reviewed publications; proceedings of meetings, conferences, symposia; records of organizations & government agencies - annual reports, constitutions

Secondary SourcesInterpret, analyze, summarize, discuss, and draw conclusions about primary sources.

Secondary SourcesThey are accounts written by those who didn’t experience events first-hand or create the work.

Secondary SourcesCan provide you with backgroundinformation and historical perspective based on other events that have taken place since the original event or work.

Secondary SourcesCan contain copies or portions of primary sources, in order to discuss them.

Examples of Secondary Sources

• dictionaries, encyclopedias, fact books, guide books, manuals, directories

• book or movie reviews, articles found in scholarly publications that discuss or evaluate someone else’s original research

• biographies, histories, text books, commentaries, indexes, abstracts

Primary vs Secondary SourcesPrimary Source Secondary Source

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address The book Lincoln at Gettysburg: the words that remade America by Gary Willis

A fossil of Tyrannosaurus Rex Journal article about dinosaurs that does not uncover new findings.

The movie Gone with the Wind, 1939

Biography of Victor Fleming, director of Gone with the Wind.

Notes taken by a Registered Nurse that record the symptoms of a patient who has been diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma.

An entry on Ewing Sarcoma in Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica.

The letters of Martin Luther King, Jr. A website that critiques the letters, speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa An eBook surveying the history of painting.

But it can get complicated. Focus on what you are studying to help determine what the primary source is.

Primary Source = what is being studiedPrimary Source Secondary Source What is being studied?

A published copy of the diary of Anne Frank

1995 documentary film Anne Frank Remembered

The diary

1995 documentary film Anne Frank Remembered

Reviews of the documentary film

The film

Letters between Frank Lloyd Wright and the Guggenheim estate on the creation of the Guggenheim museum.

1986 book Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim correspondence

The letters

1986 book Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim correspondence

Journal article about 1986 book Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim correspondence

The book