Research Toolkit

Identifying Primary vs. Secondary Sources

A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. Primary sources include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups are also primary sources. In the natural and social sciences, primary sources are often empirical studies—research where an experiment was performed or a direct observation was made. The results of empirical studies are typically found in scholarly articles or papers delivered at conferences.

Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyze, evaluate, summarize, and process primary sources. Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else's original research.

Most books are secondary sources, where authors reference primary source materials and add their own analysis. "Lincoln at Gettysburg: the Words that Remade America" by Gary Wills is about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. If you are researching Abraham Lincoln, this book would be a secondary source because Wills is offering his views about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. Books can also function as primary sources. For example, Abraham Lincoln's letters, speeches, or autobiography would be primary sources. To locate primary sources in the library catalog, do a keyword search and include "sources" in your search. The search results for "Abraham Lincoln" and "Sources" would include "The Civil War: the First Year Told By Those Who Lived It", a book that includes letters written by Abraham Lincoln.

Newspapers publish frequently—often daily—and are good sources for recent information. They focus on reporting events and relating factual information. Generally, newspapers use accessible language and target a general audience. Newspapers cover ongoing stories, and some reports may later be proved erroneous as more information becomes available. Articles are reviewed by editors before they are published but the pace of publication requires a quick editorial process. Newspapers also offer editorials and opinion pieces, which are usually labeled to distinguish them from news stories.

Magazines are a popular (not scholarly) source, written for the general public. They consist of diverse and timely collections of articles, features, and photographs on a variety of topics ranging from current events and lifestyle to science, arts, and literature. Magazines often feature expert opinions, interviews, and reviews relating to both entertainment and educational content.

A journal is a scholarly publication that contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts or researchers in the same field. These articles generally report on original research or case studies. Many of these publications are "peer reviewed". This means that scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published. Articles in scholarly publications use scholarly or technical language and include a full bibliography of sources cited in the article. 

Visual materials such as maps, photographs, prints, graphic arts, and original art forms can provide insights into how people viewed and/or were viewed the world in which they existed.
Films, videos, TV programs, and digital recordings can be primary sources. Documentaries, feature films, and TV news broadcasts can provide insights into the fantasies, biases, political attitudes, and material culture of the times in which they were created. Radio broadcast recordings, oral histories, and the recorded music of a particular era can also serve as primary source material.