Primary & Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

What is a primary source?

• A primary source is a document, speech, or other type of evidence created during the time period under study.
• Primary sources reflect the viewpoint of the participant or observer and offer the researcher an inside view of a particular event.

• Original documents such as diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, and manuscripts, records of organizations such as minutes, reports, and correspondence, news film footage, newspaper articles, official government records, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, research data, an eyewitness account.
• Creative works such as art, drama, music, novels, and poetry
• Relics or artifacts such as physical objects, buildings, clothing, furniture, tools, toys, jewelry, and pottery.

• The Bible records Hebrew customs during biblical times.
• Plato's Republic describes individuals in ancient Greece.
• The Declaration of Independence is an artifact fundamental to U.S. History.
• Diary of Anne Frank records experiences of Jews in World War II.
• Film footage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
• Pottery or weavings from Native American Indians.