Primary source

Primary source

In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called
original source or evidence) is an artifact, a document, diary, manuscript,
autobiography, a recording, or any other source of information that was created at
the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic.
Similar definitions can be used in library science, and other areas of scholarship,
although different fields have somewhat different definitions. In journalism, a
primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document
written by such a person.

Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on,
or build upon primary sources. Generally, accounts written after the fact with the
benefit (and possible distortions) of hindsight are secondary.

[1]

A secondary source

may also be a primary source depending on how it is used.

[2]

For example, a memoir

would be considered a primary source in research concerning its author or about his
or her friends characterized within it, but the same memoir would be a secondary
source if it were used to examine the culture in which its author lived. "Primary" and
"secondary" should be understood as relative terms, with sources categorized
according to specific historical contexts and what is being studied.

[3]:118–246 [4]

The significance of source classification

History
Other fields

Finding primary sources

Using primary sources

Strengths and weaknesses

Classifying sources

In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine their independence and reliability.

[4]

In contexts

such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources and that "if none are available, it is only with great
caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources."

[5]

Sreedharan believes that primary sources have the most

direct connection to the past and that they "speak for themselves" in ways that cannot be captured through the filter of secondary
sources.

[6]

This wall painting found in the
Roman city of Pompeii is an example
of a primary source about people in
Pompeii in Roman times. (Portrait of
Paquius Proculo)

Contents

The significance of source classification

History

In scholarly writing, the objective of classifying sources
is to determine the independence and reliability of
sources.

[4]

Though the terms primary source and

secondary source originated in historiography as a way to
trace the history of historical ideas, they have been
applied to many other fields. For example, these ideas
may be used to trace the history of scientific theories,
literary elements and other information that is passed
from one author to another.

In scientific literature, a primary source is the original publication of a scientist's new data, results and theories. In political history,
primary sources are documents such as official reports, speeches, pamphlets, posters, or letters by participants, official election
returns and eyewitness accounts. In the history of ideas or intellectual history, the main primary sources are books, essays and letters
written by intellectuals; these intellectuals may include historians, whose books and essays are therefore considered primary sources
for the intellectual historian, though they are secondary sources in their own topical fields. In religious history, the primary sources
are religious texts and descriptions of religious ceremonies and rituals.

[7]

A study of cultural history could include fictional sources such as novels or plays. In a broader sense primary sources also include
artifacts like photographs, newsreels, coins, paintings or buildings created at the time. Historians may also take archaeological
artifacts and oral reports and interviews into consideration. W

ritten sources may be divided into three types.

[8]

Narrative sources or literary sources tell a story or message. They are not limited to fictional sources (which can
be sources of information for contemporary attitudes) but include

diaries, films, biographies, leading philosophical

works and scientific works.
Diplomatic sources include charters and other legal documents which usually follow a set format.
Social documents are records created by organizations, such as registers of births and tax records.

In historiography, when the study of history is subject to historical scrutiny, a secondary source becomes a primary source. For a
biography of a historian, that historian's publications would be primary sources. Documentary films can be considered a secondary
source or primary source, depending on how much the filmmaker modifies the original sources.

[9]

The Lafayette College Library, provides a synopsis of primary sources in several areas of study:

"The definition of a primary source varies depending upon the academic discipline and the context in which it is used.

In the humanities, a primary source could be defined as something that was created either during the
time period being studied or afterward by individuals reflecting on their involvement in the events of
that time.
In the social sciences, the definition of a primary source would be expanded to include numerical data
that has been gathered to analyze relationships between people, events, and their environment.
In the natural sciences, a primary source could be defined as a report of original findings or ideas.
These sources often appear in the form of research articles with sections on methods and results."

[10]

Although many primary sources remain in private hands, others are located in archives , libraries, museums, historical societies, and
special collections. These can be public or private. Some are affiliated with universities and colleges, while others are government
entities. Materials relating to one area might be spread over a large number of different institutions. These can be distant from the
original source of the document. For example, the Huntington Library in California houses a large number of documents from the
United Kingdom.

From a letter of Philip II, King of Spain, 16th century

Other fields

Finding primary sources

In the US, digital copies of primary sources can be retrieved from a number of places. The Library of Congress maintains several
digital collections where they can be retrieved. Some examples are American Memory and Chronicling America . The National
Archives and Records Administration also has digital collections in Digital Vaults. The Digital Public Library of America searches
across the digitized primary source collections of many libraries, archives, and museums. The Internet Archive also has primary
source materials in many formats.

In the UK, the National Archives provides a consolidated search of its own catalogue and a wide variety of other archives listed on
the Access to Archives index. Digital copies of various classes of documents at the National Archives (including wills) are available
from DocumentsOnline. Most of the available documents relate to England and Wales. Some digital copies of primary sources are
available from the National Archives of Scotland. Many County Record Offices collections are included in Access to Archives, while
others have their own on-line catalogues. Many County Record Of

fices will supply digital copies of documents.

In other regions, Europeana has digitized materials from across Europe while the World Digital Library and Flickr Commons have
items from all over the world. Trove has primary sources from Australia.

Most primary source materials are not digitized and may only be represented online with a record or finding aid. Both digitized and
not digitized materials can be found through catalogs such as WorldCat, the Library of Congress catalog , the National Archives
catalog, and so on.

History as an academic discipline is based on primary sources, as evaluated by the community of scholars, who report their findings
in books, articles and papers. Arthur Marwick says "Primary sources are absolutely fundamental to history."

[11]

Ideally, a historian

will use all available primary sources that were created by the people involved at the time being studied. In practice some sources
have been destroyed, while others are not available for research. Perhaps the only eyewitness reports of an event may be memoirs,
autobiographies, or oral interviews taken years later. Sometimes the only evidence relating to an event or person in the distant past
was written or copied decades or centuries later. Manuscripts that are sources for classical texts can be copies of documents, or
fragments of copies of documents. This is a common problem in classical studies, where sometimes only a summary of a book or
letter has survived. Potential difficulties with primary sources have the result that history is usually taught in schools using secondary
sources.

Historians studying the modern period with the intention of publishing an academic article prefer to go back to available primary
sources and to seek new (in other words, forgotten or lost) ones. Primary sources, whether accurate or not, offer new input into
historical questions and most modern history revolves around heavy use of archives and special collections for the purpose of finding
useful primary sources. A work on history is not likely to be taken seriously as scholarship if it only cites secondary sources, as it
does not indicate that original research has been done.

[3]

However, primary sources – particularly those from before the 20th century – may have hidden challenges. "Primary sources, in fact,
are usually fragmentary, ambiguous and very difficult to analyse and interpret."

[11]

Obsolete meanings of familiar words and social

context are among the traps that await the newcomer to historical studies. For this reason, the interpretation of primary texts is
typically taught as part of an advanced college or postgraduate history course, although advanced self-study or informal training is
also possible.

The following questions are asked about primary sources:

What is the tone?
Who is the intended audience?
What is the purpose of the publication?
What assumptions does the author make?
What are the bases of the author's conclusions?
Does the author agree or disagree with other authors of the subject?
Does the content agree with what you know or have learned about the issue?
Where was the source made? (questions of systemic bias)

Using primary sources

In many fields and contexts, such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources if possible, and "if none
are available, it is only with great caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources."

[5]

In addition, primary

sources avoid the problem inherent in secondary sources in which each new author may distort and put a new spin on the findings of
prior cited authors.

[12]

"A history, whose author draws conclusions from other than primary sources or secondary sources actually based on
primary sources, is by definition fiction and not history at all."

— Kameron Searle

However, a primary source is not necessarily more of an authority or better than a secondary source. There can be bias and tacit
unconscious views which twist historical information.

"Original material may be... prejudiced, or at least not exactly what it claims to be."

— David Iredale[13]

The errors may be corrected in secondary sources, which are often subjected to peer review, can be well documented, and are often
written by historians working in institutions where methodological accuracy is important to the future of the author's career and
reputation. Historians consider the accuracy and objectiveness of the primary sources that they are using and historians subject both
primary and secondary sources to a high level of scrutiny. A primary source such as a journal entry (or the online version, a blog), at
best, may only reflect one individual's opinion on events, which may or may not be truthful, accurate, or complete.

Participants and eyewitnesses may misunderstand events or distort their reports, deliberately or not, to enhance their own image or
importance. Such effects can increase over time, as people create a narrative that may not be accurate.

[14]

For any source, primary or

secondary, it is important for the researcher to evaluate the amount and direction of bias.

[15]

As an example, a government report may

be an accurate and unbiased description of events, but it may be censored or altered for propaganda or cover-up purposes. The facts
can be distorted to present the opposing sides in a negative light. Barristers are taught that evidence in a court case may be truthful
but may still be distorted to support or oppose the position of one of the parties.

Many sources can be considered either primary or secondary, depending on the context in which they are examined.

[4]

Moreover, the

distinction between primary and secondary sources is subjective and contextual,

[16]

so that precise definitions are difficult to

make.

[17]

A book review, when it contains the opinion of the reviewer about the book rather than a summary of the book, becomes a

primary source.

[18][19]

If a historical text discusses old documents to derive a new historical conclusion, it is considered to be a primary source for the new
conclusion. Examples in which a source can be both primary and secondary include an obituary

[20]

or a survey of several volumes of

a journal counting the frequency of articles on a certain topic.

[20]

Whether a source is regarded as primary or secondary in a given context may change, depending upon the present state of knowledge
within the field.

[21]

For example, if a document refers to the contents of a previous but undiscovered letter, that document may be

considered "primary", since it is the closest known thing to an original source; but if the letter is later found, it may then be
considered "secondary"

[22]

In some instances, the reason for identifying a text as the "primary source" may devolve from the fact that no copy of the original
source material exists, or that it is the oldest extant source for the information cited.

[23]

Strengths and weaknesses

Classifying sources

Historians must occasionally contend with forged documents that purport to be primary sources. These forgeries have usually been
constructed with a fraudulent purpose, such as promulgating legal rights, supporting false pedigrees, or promoting particular
interpretations of historic events. The investigation of documents to determine their authenticity is called

diplomatics.

For centuries, Popes used the forged Donation of Constantine to bolster the Papacy's secular power. Among the earliest forgeries are
false Anglo-Saxon charters, a number of 11th- and 12th-century forgeries produced by monasteries and abbeys to support a claim to
land where the original document had been lost or never existed. One particularly unusual forgery of a primary source was
perpetrated by Sir Edward Dering, who placed false monumental brasses in a parish church.

[24]

In 1986, Hugh Trevor-Roper

"authenticated" the Hitler Diaries, which were later proved to be forgeries. Recently, forged documents have been placed within the
UK National Archives in the hope of establishing a false provenance .

[25][26]

However, historians dealing with recent centuries rarely

encounter forgeries of any importance.

[3]:22–25

Examples

Monograph

Others

Archival research
Historiography
Source criticism
Source literature
Source text
Historical document

Secondary source
Tertiary source
Original research
UNISIST model
Scientific journalism
Scholarly method

1. "

Primary, secondary and tertiary sources (https://web.archive.org/web/20130726061349/http://www

.lib.umd.edu:80/u

es/guides/primary-sources)

". University Libraries, University of Maryland.

2. "

Primary and secondary sources (http://www.ithacalibrary.com/sp/subjects/primary)

". Ithaca College Library.

Oscar Handlin

and

Arthur Meier Schlesinger

, Harvard Guide to American History (1954)

4. Kragh, Helge (1989).

An Introduction to the Historiography of Science (https://books.google.com/books?id=d2zy_QS

q2b0C&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=%22secondary+source%22+historiography)

. Cambridge University Press.

p. 121.

ISBN

0-521-38921-6

. "[T]he distinction is not a sharp one. Since a source is only a source in a specific

historical context, the same source object can be both a primary or secondary source according to what it is used
for."

5. Cipolla, Carlo M. (1992).

Between Two Cultures:An Introduction to Economic History (https://books.google.com/?id=

GIqRTlepwmoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=cipolla)

. W. W. Norton & Co. p. 27.

ISBN

978-0-393-30816-7

6. Sreedharan, E. (2004).

A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000 (https://books.google.com/books?id=AI

Gq85RVvdoC&pg=PA302&dq=historiography+%22primary+source%22+%22secondary+source%22)

. "[I]t is through the primary sources that the past indisputably imposes its

reality on the historian. That this imposition is basic in any understanding of the past is clear from the rules that
documents should not be altered, or that any material damaging to a historian's argument or purpose should not be
left out or suppressed. These rules mean that the sources or the texts of the past have an integrity and that they do
indeed 'speak for themselves', and that they are necessary constraints through which past reality imposes itself on
the historian."

"Primary Sources - Religion" (http://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/content.php?pid=60919&sid=447878)

. Research

Guides at Tufts University. 26 August 2014. Retrieved 15 January 2014.

Forgeries

See also

References

Benjamin, Jules R (2004). A Student's Guide to History. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

ISBN

0-312-40356-9

8. Howell, Martha C.; Prevenier, Walter. (2001). From reliable sources : an introduction to historical method

. Ithaca,

N.Y.: Cornell University Press. pp. 20–22.

ISBN

0-8014-8560-6

9. Cripps, Thomas (1995). "Historical Truth: An Interview with Ken Burns". American Historical Review. The American

Historical Review, Vol. 100, No. 3. 100 (3): 741–764.

doi

10.2307/2168603 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2168603)

JSTOR

2168603 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2168603)

10.

"Primary Sources: what are they?" (http://library.lafayette.edu/help/primary/definitions)

. Lafayette College Library.

11. Marwick, Arthur. "Primary Sources: Handle with Care". In Sources and Methods for Family and Community

Historians: A Handbook edited by Michael Drake and Ruth Finnegan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997.

ISBN

0-521-46580-X

12. Ross, Jeffrey Ian (2004). "Taking Stock of Research Methods and Analysis on Oppositional Political T

errorism". The

American Sociologist. 35 (2): 26–37.

doi

10.1007/BF02692395 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF02692395)

. "The

analysis of secondary source information is problematic. The further an investigator is from the primary source, the
more distorted the information may be. Again, each new person may put his or her spin on the findings.

13. Iredale, David (1973). Enjoying archives: what they are, where to find them, how to use them

. Newton Abbot, David

and Charles,.

ISBN

0-7153-5669-0

14. Barbara W. Sommer and Mary Kay Quinlan, The Oral History Manual (2002)
15. Library of Congress, " Analysis of Primary Sources"

online 2007 (http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/analy

ze.html)

16. Dalton, Margaret Stieg; Charnigo, Laurie (September 2004).

"Historians and Their Information Sources" (http://crl.acr

l.org/content/65/5/400.full.pdf+html)

. College & Research Libraries. 65 (5): 419.

doi

10.5860/crl.65.5.400 (https://doi.

org/10.5860%2Fcrl.65.5.400)

. Retrieved 3 January 2017.

17. Delgadillo, Roberto; Lynch, Beverly (May 1999).

"Future Historians: Their Quest for Information" (http://crl.acrl.org/co

ntent/60/3/245.full.pdf+html)

. College & Research Libraries. 60 (3): 245–259, at 253. "[T]he same document can be a

primary or a secondary source depending on the particular analysis the historian is doing.

18. Princeton (2011).

"Book reviews" (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=book%20review)

. Scholarly

definition document. Princeton. Retrieved 22 September 2011.

19. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (2011).

"Book reviews" (http://www.lib.vt.edu/find/byformat/bookrev

iews.html)

. Scholarly definition document. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Retrieved

22 September 2011.

20. Duffin, Jacalyn (1999).

History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction

(https://books.google.com/?id=__oDQ

6yDO7kC&pg=PA366&dq=%22secondary+source%22+historiography)

. University of Toronto Press. p. 366.

ISBN

8020-7912-1

21. Henige, David (1986). "Primary Source by Primary Source? On the Role of Epidemics in New W

orld Depopulation".

Ethnohistory. Ethnohistory, Vol. 33, No. 3. 33 (3): 292–312, at 292.

doi

10.2307/481816 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F

481816)

JSTOR

481816 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/481816)

. "[T]he term 'primary' inevitably carries a relative

meaning insofar as it defines those pieces of information that stand in closest relationship to an event or process

the present state of our knowledge. Indeed, in most instances the very nature of a primary source tells us that it is
actually derivative.…[H]istorians have no choice but to regard certain of the available sources as 'primary' since they
are as near to truly original sources as they can now secure

22.

Henige 1986

, p. 292.

23. Ambraseys, Nicholas; Melville, Charles Peter; Adams, Robin Dartrey (1994).

The Seismicity of Egypt, Arabia, and

the Red Sea (https://books.google.com/?id=dtVqdSKnBq4C&pg=P

A7&dq=historiography+%22primary+source%22

+%22secondary+source%22)

. Cambridge University Press. p. 7.

ISBN

0-521-39120-2

. "The same chronicle can be

a primary source for the period contemporary with the author

, a secondary source for earlier material derived from

previous works, but also a primary source when these earlier works have not survived

24. Everyone has Roots: An Introduction to English Genealogy by Anthony J. Camp, published by Genealogical Pub.

Co., 1978

25.

"Introduction to record class R4" (http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16525)

. The National Archives.

Retrieved 8 March 2015.

26. Leppard, David (4 May 2008).

"Forgeries revealed in the National Archives – T

imes Online" (http://www.timesonline.c

o.uk/tol/news/uk/article3867853.ece)

. The Sunday Times. Retrieved 4 July 2011.

Craver, Kathleen W (1999). Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in History. Westwood,
CT: Greenwood Press.

ISBN

0-313-30749-0

Wood Gray (1991) [1964]. Historian's Handbook: A Key to the Study and Writing of History

. 2nd ed. Waveland

Press; 1991.

ISBN

978-0-88133-626-9

Marius, Richard; Page, Melvin Eugene (2005). A short guide to writing about history. New York: Pearson Longman.

ISBN

978-0-321-22716-4

Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen (2005). Til kilderne!: introduktion til historisk kildekritik (in Danish). [To the sources:
Introduction to historical source criticism]. København: Gads Forlag.

ISBN

978-87-12-03778-1

Primary sources repositories

Primary Sources from World War One and Two: War-letters.com

Database of mailed letters to and from soldiers

during major world conflicts from the Napoleonic W

ars to World War Two.

Fold3.com – Over 60,000,000 Primary Source Documents

created by

Ancestry.com

A listing of over 5000 websites

describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and