Primary vs Secondary Sources
What primary and secondary sources are, how to tell them apart, and how historians evaluate them.
Historians learn about the past from sources. Sources are usually grouped as primary or secondary.
Definitions
A primary source is a first-hand record from the time under study or from someone who experienced it. Examples include letters, diaries, photographs, government records, speeches, newspaper reports from the time, and objects.
A secondary source is created later by someone who analyses or interprets primary sources. Examples include textbooks, biographies and documentaries.
The same item can be either
Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on the question. A 1990 history of the First World War is a secondary source for the war. But if you are studying how historians in 1990 interpreted the war, it becomes a primary source for that question.
Evaluating a source
Ask these questions:
- Origin: Who created it, when and where?
- Purpose: Why was it created? For whom?
- Content: What does it say or show? What does it leave out?
- Reliability: Was the author in a position to know? Could there be bias?
- Usefulness: What can it tell us for this particular question?
A biased source can still be useful. Propaganda is unreliable as a record of facts but is useful evidence of what a government wanted people to believe.
Corroboration
Compare a source with others. If several independent sources agree, the claim is stronger.
Common mistakes
- Dismissing a source as "useless" because it is biased.
- Assuming a primary source is always more reliable than a secondary one.
- Describing content without evaluating origin and purpose.
Quick recap
Primary sources come from the time; secondary sources interpret it. Judge sources by origin, purpose, content and usefulness for the question asked.