PRIMARY VS.

SECONDARY SOURCES
 OBJECTIVES
• Identify the difference between primary and
secondary sources
• Enumerate materials which can be
considered primary sources
• Evaluate material in terms of authenticity
(genuine), credibility (the quality of being
believed or accepted as true, real or honest)
and provenance (history of ownership)
What are sources?
Batis (stream/spring)
• Spring of historical information; usually
archival documents
• Originators of information and data (Grey et,
al., 2018)
• Any left over of the past
What are sources?
- it provide us in different ways with information
which can add to the sum of our knowledge of the
past.
- they become historical evidences, however, when
they are interpreted by the historian to make sense
of the past.
- answers they provide will very much depend on
the sorts of questions historians are asking. For
example, a train ticket might be used to provide
evidence of migration patterns or of the cost of
living at a particular time, but also of broader
cultural trends.
https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/prospective-undergrads/virtual-classroom/historical-sources-
what
Explains what information
does the thing you brought
gives us
What are sources?
• e.g. a pair of shoes, it may provide the
cultural historian with evidence of changing
fashions and consumer tastes, or the social
historian with evidence of class differences
or production patterns. It all depends on
what the historian wants to know.
• a 'good historical evidence‘ is one wherein
you know what evidence it is supposed to
provide.

https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/prospective-undergrads/virtual-
classroom/historical-sources-what
Importance of Sources to Historian’s work

“Excerpts from Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method by Louis

Gottschalk (in Torres, 2018)”

-primary sources are historical sources “it is

from historical sources that our history is
studied and written”

- use variety of methodologies to properly

study and write history to enhance and
disseminate national identity (Torres, 2018)
 Test your knowledge
1. A biography of Rizal written in 1950
2. Photographs of People Power Revolution
3. Letters written by Rizal
4. A documentary of ABS-CBN about the
Martial Law
5. A newspaper article from 1912 about the
sinking of the Titanic
6. A speech given by Marcos
7. A magazine article about WW 2
8. An interview you had with a Vietnam War
veteran *
9. Website about history
10. A newspaper article from 1991 about the
50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack
Answers
• 1. Secondary
• 2. Primary
• 3. Primary
• 4. Secondary
• 5. Primary
• 6. Primary
• 7. Secondary
• 8. Primary
• 9. Secondary
• 10. Primary
Primary vs. Secondary Sources
 Sources of History
Primary Secondary
• materials that were • materials that were
created at the time the created after the
event.
event occurred or
materials created by • these materials might
tell you about an
those who experienced event, person, time or
the event. Eyewitness place, but they were
• Materials produced by created by someone
people or groups not from the time
directly involved in the period.
event/topic being • evidences created out
studied. of primary sources
• accounts of the past
created by people
 Sources of History
Primary Secondary
• examples: letters, • examples: history
speeches, diaries, books, school
newspaper articles from textbooks,
the time period, interviews encyclopedia, history
with people who were magazines, websites,
around when the event and documentaries,
occurred, documents, biographies
photographs, and artifacts • Testimony of anyone
such as tools, weapons, who is not an
clothing from the time eyewitness
period, excerpts from (Gottschalk)
historical documents, oral
histories, film,
autobiographies
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1366&bih=662&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=epIDW6-
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• For visual documents to be used as primary
sources, it requires a careful analysis of the
content and the point of view of the creator.

• Third source- general references which point

the reader to the primary of secondary
source; e.g. card catalogue
Guide Questions
1. What is the difference between primary
source and secondary source?
2. Why primary sources are important in the
study of history?
3. What is the purpose of the secondary
source?
4. How do you discriminate between
contradicting reports of a single event from
different sources?