Primary sources are first-person accounts or direct evidence of the topics or events you are researching. They may include letters, diaries, photographs, autobiographies, records such as birth certificates or land deeds, treaties and other government documents, news footage and eyewitness articles, plays, movies, music, works of art, speeches, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, architectural plans, and many other kinds of artifacts.
Secondary sources analyze, summarize, interpret, or comment on events or culture. They are usually created by someone who did not experience an event first-hand. They may include: textbooks; encyclopedias; scholarly journal articles; biographies; criticism of music, literature, or film; political or cultural analysis; and news reports other than first-hand accounts.
Some sources may be considered primary or secondary, depending on how you use them. For example, a 1967 newspaper article about the Supreme Court's decision legalizing interracial marriage in all 50 states that year could be considered a secondary source, because the journalist writing the article did not write the Supreme Court decision himself. But if you are interested in how the decision was portrayed by the media during the civil rights movement, the same article could be considered a primary source as an historical artifact. Watch Newspapers - Primary Source? for more information.
For more information on different types of primary and secondary sources, review the presentation below, and remember: sometimes whether a source counts as primary or secondary depends on how you are using it. When in doubt, ask your professor, or a librarian.
The following video will help you to understand the differences between primary research and secondary research, and the ethical considerations associated with them (from off campus you will need to log in using your Pipeline username and password):
The following video tutorial covers how to distinguish between and use primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in your academic life (from off campus you will need to log in using your Pipeline username and password):
To access the tutorials below from off campus, you will need to log in using your Pipeline username and password.
The following video describes how the peer review process works, why it's important, and how to locate peer-reviewed articles.
The following video explores how to identify scholarly sources and how to read them strategically.