Template:Primary source

In historical scholarship, a primary source is a document or other source of information that was created at or near the time being studied, often by the people being studied. In this sense primary does not mean superior. It refers to creation by the primary players, and is distinguished from a secondary source, which is a historical work, like a scholarly book or article, built up from primary sources.

Types of primary sources

The nature of a primary source depends on the historical problem being studied. In political history, the most important primary sources are likely to be documents such as official reports, speeches, letters and diaries by participants, and eyewitness accounts (as by a journalist who was there). In the history of ideas or intellectual history, the dominant primary sources might be books of philosophy or scientific literature. A study of cultural history could include fictional sources such as novels or plays. In a broader sense primary sources also include physical objects like photographs, newsreels, coins, paintings or buildings created at the time. Historians may also take archaeological artifacts and oral reports and interviews into consideration. Written sources may be divided into three main types.

• Narrative sources or literary sources tell a story or message. They are not limited to fictional sources (which can be sources of information for contemporary attitudes), but include diaries, films, biographies, scientific works, and so on.
• Diplomatic sources include charters and other legal documents which usually follow a set format.
• Social documents are records created by organizations, such as registers of births, tax records, and so on.

In the study of historiography, when the study of history is itself subject to historical scrutiny, a secondary source becomes a primary source. For a biography of a historian, that historian's publications would be primary sources. Documentary films can be considered a secondary source or primary source, depending on how much the filmmaker modifies the original sources.

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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

• Wikisource – The Free Library – is the Wikimedia project that collects, edits, and catalogs source texts.
• Ithaca College Library - Primary and secondary sources
• "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.
• Finding primary sources] from the University of California, Berkeley library
• "Primary versus secondary sources" from the Bowling Green State University library