What is a Primary Source

Primary sources include documents or artifacts created by a witness to or participant

in an event.  They can be firsthand testimony or evidence created during the time period
that you are studying.
Primary sources may include diaries, letters, interviews, oral histories, photographs,
newspaper articles, government documents, poems, novels, plays, and music.  The
collection and analysis of primary sources is central to historical research.
Note about primary sources: While there are many digital primary resources
available, it is very important to remember that the majority of primary sources have not
yet been digitized.

 The Books link in the navigation bar at the left provides information for locating
primary sources via UW Libraries Search
 Under the Primary & Secondary Sources link in the navigation bar your find
several options for locating these types of resources. 

 Using primary sources on the Web

Examples of Primary Sources

 Published Compilations

 Advertisements
 Maps
 At Home in Nineteenth-Century America: A
Documentary History

Available in print and online

UW Tacoma Library Stacks
E161 .A8 2015

Compilation that draws upon "advice manuals, architectural designs, personal accounts, popular fiction, advertising
images, and reform literature to revisit the variety of places Americans called home."
 Voices of the Enslaved in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

Available online

A major essay [by the author] introduces the work and the second part of the book features eighty previously
unpublished primary documents [in translation] to illustrate the experiences of Cuba's African slaves.
What is a Secondary Source
Secondary sources analyze a scholarly question and often use primary sources as
evidence.
Secondary sources include books and articles about a topic.  They may include lists of
sources, i.e. bibliographies, that may lead you to other primary or secondary sources.
Databases help you identify articles in scholarly journals or books on a particular topic.

 The Articles link in the navigation bar at the left provides links to databases that
will lead you to secondary sources (primarily articles).
 The Books link in the navigation bar at the left provides information for locating
secondary sources via UW Libraries Search.
Types of evidence

A selection of sources 
There are four main types of evidence for local history research:
Printed sources
Books, articles, papers, pamphlets, newspapers, directories and all sorts of
miscellaneous material, which is most likely to be found in the local studies collection of
your library. Such material is often grouped together under the label 'secondary sources'
because most of it has already been worked on and interpreted by historians and others
in the past.
Most branch libraries have a small local history section, but the important collections will
be at the central library or a main town library. The local studies collection is the
essential starting point, and you should make sure that you make use of its resources.
Archives
The documentary sources, usually in manuscript or typescript form (and, increasingly,
available on microfilm, microfiche or in electronic media) are the raw material of local
history as they are of other aspects of historical research. These are usually labelled as
'primary sources'. They are endlessly interesting and challenging.
' Documentary research is the key to the local history trail ...'
Documentary material will normally be found in the county record office, the borough or
district archives, or sometimes in a university or other library. In many places there has
been a trend towards bringing printed material and archives together under one roof, in
a local studies centre. Documentary research is the key to the local history trail, but it is
necessary to find out the background and use the secondary sources first.
Oral testimony
Recording the memories of local people is increasingly seen as a valuable source of
information. Since the mid-20th century people have been recording and transcribing
memories and reminiscences, and for many parts of the country there is now a large
collection of sound recordings and written transcripts that can be used by local
historians. The local library or record office should know of the whereabouts of any such
material.
Physical evidence
The landscape, the fields, the streets, the buildings, the market places and the factories,
the riversides and the housing estates … all these are part of the historical record and
help to tell their own story. Look around you and try to see your locality as though it
were a document or a book. Try to read what it says and to understand its message.
 This guide will introduce students to three types of resources or sources of information: primary,
secondary, and tertiary.
Definition of a Primary Source: 
Primary sources are firsthand documents that provide direct evidence on your topic.  

The Library of Congress refers to them as the "raw materials of history — original documents
and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary
sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience."

A primary source is most often created during the time the events you are studying occurred,
such as newspaper articles from the period, correspondence, diplomatic records, original research
reports and notes, diaries etc. They may also include items created after the events occurred, but
that recount them such as autobiographies and oral histories.

Types of Primary Sources

Original Documents

Diaries
Speeches
Correspondence
Interviews
Manuscripts
Government Documents
News film footage
Archival Materials
Autobiographies 
Creative Works
Art works
Novels
Poetry
Music
Architectural drawings/plans
Photographs
Film

Relics and Artifacts

Pottery
Decorative arts
Clothing
Buildings
Textiles
Needlework
Definition of a Secondary Source: 
Secondary Sources are accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
They are interpretations and evaluations of primary sources. Secondary sources are
not evidence, but rather commentary on and discussion of evidence.¹

Types of Secondary Sources

Secondary Sources

Bibliographies

Biographical works

Commentaries, criticisms

Conference proceedings

Essays or reviews

Histories

Literary criticism such as journal articles

Magazine and newspaper articles

Monographs, other than fiction and autobiographies

Reprints of art works

Textbooks (could also be considered tertiary)

 Types of Secondary Sources

Secondary Sources

could also be Websites (considered primary)

Definition of a Tertiary Source

A tertiary source presents summaries or condensed versions of materials, usually with references
back to the primary and/or secondary sources. 

Types of Tertiary Sources

Tertiary Sources

Almanacs 

Abstracts 

Dictionaries 

Encyclopedias

Handbooks
Primary sources are contemporaneous to the subject being studied. They could be objects,
letters, journal or newspapers. They must originate from the time being studied to be accepted
as a primary source, this can include copied images of an original document, or reprinted
editions of a book. If a historian was studying Abraham Lincoln, diaries and letters written by
Lincoln would be primary sources.

Secondary sources are nearly always textual: books or journals. A secondary source would be
an article written about a primary source. To continue the example above, an essay or book
written about Abraham Lincoln based on his diaries and letters would be a secondary source.

Tertiary sources are sources that rely on secondary sources for their information. This would
include most school textbooks, essays written at school that cite textbooks and secondary
sources. Books and essays that are historiographical in nature, so discuss the way in which
history is presented, are tertiary sources.