readphi | primary and secondary sources

primary and secondary

2 kinds of written and oral sources

primary source

testimony of an eyewitness, or of a witness by any other of the senses, or of a mechanical device like Dictaphone – that is, of one who or that which was present at the events of which he or it tells (eyewitness)

secondary source

testimony of anyone who is not an eyewitness – that is, of one who was not present at the events of which he tells

primary source

Main text or work that you are discussing, actual data or research results, or historical documents

primary

primary or secondary

diary

primary

primary or secondary

journal

primary

primary or secondary

speech

primary

primary or secondary

interview

primary

primary or secondary

letter

primary

primary or secondary

memo

primary

primary or secondary

manuscripts

primary

primary or secondary

memoir

primary

primary or secondary

autobiography

primary

primary or secondary

government records

primary

primary or secondary

records of organizations (e.g minutes, reports, correspondence)

primary

primary or secondary

Published materials (books and journal/newspaper articles) written AT THE TIME about a particular event

primary

primary or secondary

Documentary: photographs, audio recordings, movies or videos

primary

primary or secondary

Public opinion polls, field notes, scientific experiments, artifacts

primary

primary or secondary

Reprinted primary sources (often in reference books such as: Speeches of the American Presidents and Documents of American History)

primary

primary or secondary

maps

primary

primary or secondary

oral histories

primary

primary or secondary

postcards

primary

primary or secondary

court records

primary

primary or secondary

baneratic cuamines

primary

primary or secondary

cencinical revory

primary

primary or secondary

persona accounts

primary

primary or secondary

jewelry

primary

primary or secondary

private papers

primary

primary or secondary

deeds

primary

primary or secondary

wills

primary

primary or secondary

proceedings

primary

primary or secondary

census data

secondary sources

Records generated by an event but written by non-participants in the event. Based on/derived from primary sources - but they have been interpreted, or analyzed.

secondary

primary or secondary

encyclopedias

secondary

primary or secondary

chronologies

secondary

primary or secondary

fact books

secondary

primary or secondary

biographies

secondary

primary or secondary

monographs

secondary

primary or secondary

dissertations

secondary

primary or secondary

general histories

secondary

primary or secondary

most journal articles

secondary

primary or secondary

most published books

original

a document is ____ if it is…

1. because it contains fresh and creative ideas;

2. because it is not translated from the language in which it was first written;

3. because it is in its earliest, unpolished stage;

4. because its text is the approved text, unmodified and untampered with; and

5. because it is the earliest available source of the information it provides.

1. because it contains fresh and creative ideas;

2. because it is not translated from the language in which it was first written;

3. because it is in its earliest, unpolished stage;

4. because its text is the approved text, unmodified and untampered with; and

5. because it is the earliest available source of the information it provides.

meanings of original (5)

primary particulars

Sources whether primary or secondary, are important to the historian because they contain _______

reliability

The particulars they furnish are trustworthy not because of the book or article or report they are in, but because of the _____ of the narrator as a witness of those particulars

historical method

process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past

historiography

imaginative reconstruction of the past from the data derived by that process

historiography

writing of history

document

written source of historical information as contrasted with oral testimony or with artifacts, pictorial survivals, and archaeological remains

documentation

signifies any process of proof based upon any kind of source whether written, oral, pictorial or archaeological

human document

“account of individual experience which reveals the individual’s actions as a human agent and as a participant in social life”

personal document

any self-revealing record that intentionally or unintentionally yields information regarding the structure, dynamics and functioning of the author’s mental life