General Examples: Primary and Secondary Sources
Primary and Secondary Sources defined
What is a Primary Source?
The original document, work of art, lab report, interview, etc. There has been no evaluation or interpretations of the material. It’s what research is based off of.
Examples:
- Artifacts (e.g. coins, plant specimens, fossils, furniture, tools, clothing, all from the time under study);
- Audio recordings (e.g. radio programs)
- Diaries;
- Internet communications on email, listservs;
- Interviews (e.g., oral histories, telephone, e-mail);
- Journal articles published in peer-reviewed publications;
- Letters;
- Newspaper articles written at the time;
- Original Documents (i.e. birth certificate, will, marriage license, trial transcript);
- Patents;
- Photographs
- Proceedings of Meetings, conferences and symposia;
- Records of organizations, government agencies (e.g. annual report, treaty, constitution, government document);
- Speeches;
- Survey Research (e.g., market surveys, public opinion polls);
- Video recordings (e.g. television programs);
- Works of art, architecture, literature, and music (e.g., paintings, sculptures, musical scores, buildings, novels, poems).
What is a Secondary Source?
Secondary sources are written about the primary sources. They are written after the fact, as commentary or discussion of the primary source.
Examples include:
- Bibliographies;
- Biographical works;
- Commentaries, criticisms;
- Dictionaries, Encyclopedias ;
- Histories;
- Journal articles;
- Magazine and newspaper articles ;
- Monographs, other than fiction and autobiography;
- Textbooks;
- Web site (also considered primary).