Primary Sources
Primary sources are the "materials on a topic upon which subsequent interpretations or studies are based, anything from firsthand documents such as poems, diaries, court records, and interviews to research results generated by experiments, surveys, ethnographies, and so on."Primary sources are records of events as they are first described, without any interpretation or commentary. They are also sets of data, such as census statistics, which have been tabulated, but not interpreted.
Secondary Sources
Secondary sources, on the other hand, offer an analysis or a restatement of primary sources. They often attempt to describe or explain primary sources. Some secondary sources not only analyze primary sources, but also use them to argue a contention or to persuade the reader to hold a certain opinion.
Tertiary SourcesExamples include encyclopedias and textbooks
Primary Source
Secondary Source
Art
Original artwork
Article critiquing the piece of art
History
Slave diary
Book about the Underground Railroad
Literature
Poem
Treatise on a particular genre of poetry
Political Science
Treaty
Essay on Native American land rights
Theatre
Videotape of a performance
Biography of a playwright
Reprinted from Bowling Green State University Library Instruction Web Page, http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/primary.html
