Provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art.
Primary sources provide the original materials on which other research is based and
enable students and other researchers to get as close as possible to what actually
happened during a particular event or time period.
Primary and secondary sources can be written or
non-written (sound, pictures,
artifacts, etc.).
Interviews, surveys, and fieldwork Internet communications on email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups
Photographs, drawings, and posters. Books, magazine and newspaper articles and Audio recordings, DVDs,
and video recordings.
Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment
upon, analyze, evaluate, summarize, and process primary
sources. A secondary source is generally one or more
steps removed from the event or time period and are
written or produced after the fact with the benefit of
hindsight.