PRIMARY AND

SECONDARY SOURCES
HISTORICAL SOURCES
 HISTORICAL SOURCES

• Sources – an object from the past or testimony

concerning the past o which historian depend in order to
create their own depiction of that past.
 PRIMARY SOURCES
• Primary Sources - enable the researcher to get as close
as possible to what actually happened during an
historical event or time period.
• Primary Sources - are those sources produced at the
same time as the event, period, or subject being studied.
• Primary Sources – are original records of certain event
by people who have actually experienced or witnessed
it.
 EXAMPLE OF PRIMARY SOURCES
• If a historian wishes to study the Commonwealth
Constitution Convention of 1935, his primary sources
can include the minutes of the convention, newspaper
clipping Philippine Commission reports of the U.S
Commissioners, record of the convention, the of the
event. draft of the constitution, and even the
photographs.
DIARIES AND
JOURNALS
- A book in which one keeps
a daily record of events and
experiences.
- Example: Anne Frank was
a teenager during WW2.
She kept a diary or journal
the years before she died in
a concentration camp. Her
diary was later published as
“Diary of Anne frank”
LETTER
- A written, type, or printed
communication, especially one sent
in an envelop by mail or messenger.
- Example: A letter from Sigmund
Freud. It is a digital scan of the
original letter, but it still counts as a
primary source.
Official records
-Records having the legally
recognize and judicially
enforceable quality of
establishing some fact, policy,
or institutional position or
decision.
Sound recording
• Include everything from oral histories,
to music, to speeches, to radio
broadcast, and testimony and
encompass all varieties of recorded
sound.
interviews
• (first-person account of lives or events).
• Not only are you listening to someone's
personal recollections, opinions, or
interpretations of events they were
directly involve with, you are hearing it
in their own voice.
 SECONDARY SOURCE
• Secondary Source – on the other hand, are records based on primary sources.
• They explain a certain event of the past through evaluation and interpretation of records
created during a historical period.
• Secondary Source – are those sources, which were produced by an author who used primary
sources to produced the material.
 EXAMPLE OF SECONDARY
SOURCES
• These may include researches, textbooks, journals, commentaries, biographies, and criticism
or reviews of literary and creative works.
History and Culture,
Language and
Literature:
Selected Essays of
Teodoro A. Agoncillo
 ADVANTAGE OF USING PRIMARY
SOURCE
• Provide a window into the past – unfiltered access to the
record of artistic, social, scientific and political thought
and achievement during the specific period under study,
produced by people who lived during that period.
• These unique, often profoundly personal, documents and
objects can give a very real sense of what it was like to
be alive during a long-past era.
• Direct contact with the original records and artifacts
invites students to explore the content with active and
deeper analysis, and to respond thoughtfully.
• Critical thinking is developed as students probe the
context, purpose, meaning, bias, and perspective in their
analysis of the past.
 DISADVANTAGE OF PRIMARY
SOURCE
• Often incomplete and have little context. Students must
use prior knowledge and work with multiple primary
sources to find pattern.
• In analyzing primary sources, students move from
concrete observation and facts to questioning and
making inferences about materials.
 ADVANTAGES OF SECONDARY
SOURCES
• Can provide analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation
of the original information.
• Secondary sources are best for uncovering background or
historical information about the topic and broadening your
understanding of the topic.
• Allows the reader to get expert views of events and often
bring together multiple primary source relevant to the
subject matter.
 DISADVANTAGE OF SECONDARY
SOURCE
• Their validity and reliability are open to question, and
often they do not provide exact information.
• They do not represent 1st hand knowledge of a subject
matter.