Primary source

A primary source is any piece of information that was created at the time being studied, by the people being studied.

The most important are primary documents such as official reports, speeches, letters and diaries by participants, and eyewitness accounts (as by a journalist who was there.) A memoir, autobiography or oral interviews with participants taken years later are considered primary sources, although historians pay special attention to memory problems and efforts by participants to recall the past according to their own script. In a broader sense primary sources also include physical objects like photographs, newsreels, coins, paintings or buildings created at the time. For a study of literature or popular culture, fictional sources can be used. However, fictional sources are not considered "primary sources" for actual events.

A secondary source is a historical work built up from primary sources. A scholarly book or article is a secondary source. Popular books, films and novels usually do not attempt to be familiar with the scholarship or the primary sources (there are some popular writers who are close enough to scholarship to be included.) Documentary films can be considered a secondary source or primary source, depending on how much the filmmaker modifies the original sources.

Interviews with historians are considered secondary; interviews with people who were there at the time are considered primary.

History books are considered secondary sources (though they are primary sources when studying the historians who wrote them.)

Accurate history is based on primary sources, as evaluated by the community of scholars, who report their findings in books, articles and papers. In general, primary sources are difficult to use and advanced college or postgraduate training is normally required (or the equivalent in self-study at an advanced level,). A primary source is not, by default, more authoritative or accurate than a secondary source. Secondary sources often are subjected to peer review, are well documented, and are often produced through institutions where methodological accuracy is important to the future of the author's career and reputation. A primary source like a journal entry, at best, only reflects one person's take on events, which may or may not be truthful, accurate, or complete. Historians subject both primary and secondary sources to a high level of scrutiny.

As a general rule, however, modern historians prefer to go back to primary sources, if available, as well as seeking new ones. Primary sources, whether accurate or not, offer new input into historical questions and most modern history revolves around heavy use of archives for the purpose of finding useful primary sources. A work on history is not likely to be taken seriously if it only cites secondary sources, as it does not indicate that original research has been done.

See also

• Historiography
• Source text
• Secondary source
• Tertiary source

References

• Jules R. Benjamin. A Student's Guide to History (2003)
• Wood Gray, Historian's handbook, a key to the study and writing of history (Houghton Mifflin, 1964).
• Martha C. Howell and Walter Prevenier. From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (2001)
• Richard A. Marius and Melvin E. Page. A Short Guide to Writing About History(5th Edition) (2004)

External links:

• [Primary and secondary sources]
• Wikisource – The Free Library – is the Wikimedia project that collects, edits, and catalogs source texts.
• "How to distinguish between primary and secondary sources" from the University of California, Santa Cruz Library
• "Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary sources" from James Cook University Library
• Find primary sources in the collections of major research libraries using ArchiveGrid
• Joan of Arc: Primary Sources Series -- Example of a publication focusing on primary source documents.