What Are Primary Sources? - A Quick Tutorial
- Research Skills Primary SourcesRSPS helps introduce humanities and social science researchers to the key approaches and methodologies of working with source material. It contains hundreds of essays, videos, “How to” guides, and case studies, all developed by subject specialists and designed to answer your questions about working with primary sources.
Library Liaison to Engineering and Computer Science
Introduction
What is a Primary Source?
A primary source is a first-hand account of an event, time period, or philosophical era.
A primary source may include:
- diaries, journals, speeches, letters, interviews, office memos and other papers if the author was present at the event being written about
- memoirs and autobiographies describing events where the author was present
- government documents, such as census records
- reports and minutes of organizations that reflect events, conditions and ideas of the time
- books, journals and newspapers written at the time of the event in question
- photographs, audio tapes, and film that document an event
- research data documenting scientific data at the time
- artifacts of all kinds, which may include buildings (architecture), household items, cave drawings, clothing, paintings, pottery
Primary Sources do not include:
- memoirs or autobiographies that reflect on an event that the author was not present for, unless it reflects the popular opinion of the time
- a critical analysis of a work of literature that was written much later than the actual work
- documentation of ideas or psychology of a time may be found in popular fiction, films, educational material etc produced during that time period
- a critical analysis of an historical event that was written much later
Reasons for Using Primary Sources for Research
Why should I use Primary Sources?
- Scholarly Research should be based on fact and observation, which involves the use of primary sources.
- They are used so that you can form your own opinion, based on the facts. They also allow you to understand how people feel, at the time, about an event or a person.
- Primary sources are used to show your professor that you have done the research required to produce a quality paper.
- Using primary sources shows your professor that you are able to take the facts, interpret them, and draw your own conclusion, rather than just regurgitate other people's work.
- You should produce a better quality paper if it has some primary sources to back up your thesis statement.
- A mixture of sources produces a more substantial paper - use primary and secondary; scholarly and popular; paper and electronic; ideas and artifacts; fact and fiction, etc.
Top 5 Resources
- Gale Primary SourcesGale Primary Resources is a research tool that allows researchers to cross-search multiple primary source databases using a single search box. It includes the following databases: Archives Unbound, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, The Making of the Modern World, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, and Sabin Americana 1500-1926 as well as the historical archives of several major periodicals (The Economist, Punch, The Times and more). Each database can also be searched individually.
- Past Masters (Full Text Humanities) This link opens in a new windowConcentrating on primary sources in philosophy, religion, and literature, Past Masters gathers the books, diaries, letters, and correspondence of major intellects from across the centuries. Titles are typically comprised of the complete collected works of each individual author. Users may conduct searches or browse materials by title, subject (e.g., Women Writers, Religious Studies, or Continental Philosophy), or language (e.g., English, Latin, Greek, or Russian).
- Library of Congress - Digital CollectionsContains hundreds of collections of digitized American history and culture resources, curated by the national library of the United States.
- National ArchivesThe National Archives holds historical U.S. government documents (federal, congressional, and presidential records) that are created or received by the President and his staff, by Congress, by employees of Federal government agencies, and by the Federal courts in the course of their official duties.
- Shoah Visual History ArchiveThe Shoah Visual History Archive allows users to view more than 50,000 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides. These testimonies were recorded in a variety of countries and languages. UTD affiliates must create a free login to use this database.
