PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY SOURCES

There are two general kinds of historical sources: direct or primary and indirect or secondary. 

1. Primary sources are original, first-hand account of an event or period

that are usually written or made during or close to the event or period.

These sources are original and factual, not interpretive. Their key

function is to provide facts.

Examples of primary sources are diaries, journals, letters,

newspaper and magazine articles (factual accounts), government

records (census, marriage, military), photographs, maps, postcards,

posters, recorded or transcribed speeches, interviews with participants

or witnesses, interviews with people who lived during a certain time,

songs, plays, novels, stories, paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

2. Secondary sources, on the other hand, are materials made by people

long after the events being described had taken place to provide

valuable interpretations of historical events. A secondary source

analyzes and interprets primary sources. It is an interpretation of

second-hand account of a historical event.

Examples of secondary sources are biographies, histories,

literary criticism, books written by a third party about a historical event,

art and theater reviews, newspaper or journal articles that interpret.