PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCE

PRIMARY SOURCES

- Diaries and journals

EXAMPLE: Anne Frank was a teenager during World War Il. She kept a diary or journal the years before she died in a concentration camp. Her diary was later published as the “Diary of Anne Frank". This is a primary source.

PRIMARY SOURCES -These sources can be in the form of diary and journal entries, letters, memoirs, journals, speeches, interviews, official records such as government publications, minute reports, artworks, and artifacts.

PRIMARY SOURCES

- Are considered as contemporary accounts of an event, personally written or narrated by an individual person who directly experienced or participated in the said event.

Primary or Secondary Sources?

-Newspaper and Magazine articles can be a primary or secondary sources. If the article was written at the time something happened, then it is a primary source.

Example: The articles written on

Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009 are primary sources.

However, if a reporter in 2009 wrote

about George Washington's inauguration using information written by someone else (1789), that would be a secondary source.

The reliability of primary sources is assessed on how these sources are directly related and closely connected to the time of the events they pertain to. On the other hand, the reliability of secondary sources depends on the elapsed time from the date of the event to the date of their creation. More likely, the farther the date of creation from the actual event, the more reliable the source is. This is because as time passes, more naterials are likely to be made available. With this, those who engage in historical research have the opportunity to exhaust all available materials in order to come up with extensive outputs.

SECONDARY SOURCES •A secondary source is something written about the primary source. • Secondary sources are written after the fact"- that is, at a later date. • Usually the author of a secondary source will have studied the primary sources of an historical period or event and will then interpret the evidence" found in the sources. • You can think of secondary sources as second-hand information.

•Almanacs, encyclopedias, history books (textbooks), articles, documentaries etc. are all secondary sources because they were written after these events occurred SECONDARY SOURCES

•Speeches are considered Primary Sources. Examples of Speech:

Formner President

Rodrigo Duterte's "2019 State of the Nation Address" PRIMARY SOURCES

• Autobiographies An autobiography is when you write a story or book about yourself.

Example: Nelson Mandela

wrote his autobiography about events in his Ilife called "Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela". This is a primary document because he wrote his first hand experience.

• Think about it like this... • If I tell you something, I am the primary source. If you tell someone else what told you, you are the secondary source. • Secondary SOurces materials can be articles in newspapers, magazines, books found that evaluate or criticize someone else's original research.

SECONDARY SOURCES • Biography Example: A biography is when you write about another person's life. Alice Fleming Wrote biography on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. This is secondary documnent. It was written about him after he died.

Evaluation of Primary and Secondary Sources

Points of Evaluation for Primary Source Authenticity

Credibility Although primary is given to primary sources, there are instances when the credibility of these sources are contestable.

6 Points Garraghan (1958) identified six points of inquiries to evaluate the

Date- When was it produced?

Analysis -What pre-existíng material served as the basis for its production?

Localization -Where did it originate?

Integrity -What was its original form?

Authorship -Who wrote it?

Credibility -What is the evident isl value of its content?

Significance of Secondary Sources Secondary sources

-are readily available in print and digital repositories. Secondary accounts of historical events are narratíves commonly passed on fron one generation to the next or knowledge that is shared within a community. Yet, similar to the usual problem with passing information from one point to another, details can be altered.

As information is relayed from person to person, the accuracy of the source material is compromised. Nevertheless, secondary source materials in the study of Philippine History without conjectures and refutations have the capacity to fill in gaps caused by the lack of absence of primary sources.

Historions should be prepared to verity the information provided by secondary sources. Martho Howell ond Walter Prevenier (2001) stated thot before ony source con be considered es evidence in o historical orgument. it must sotisfy three preconditions. First it must be comprehensible at the most basic level of vOcabulary, language, and handwriting.

The first precondition sets the ground for the contentions on the acceptability of the source and for all the aspects of the debate.

Second the source must be carefully located in accordance with place and tine. Its author, composer. or writer, and the location where it was produced /published should be noted for the checking of authenticity and accuracy. One example is a personal letter which usually indicates when (date) and where (place) it was written. This information can assist in corroborating the details of the source given the whereabouts of its author as stated in a letter.

Internal Criteria Factors -They also evaluate in terms of internal criteria which include seven factors identified by Howell and Prevenier (2001):

1. The genealogy of the document refers to the development of the document. The document may be original, a copy, or a copy of the copy:

2. The genesis of the docunent - includes the situations and the authorities during the document's production ;:

3. The originality of the document nature of the document whether it is an eye/earwitness account or nerely passing of existing information; includes the

4. The interpretatíon of the document pertains to deducing meaning from the document

5. The authorial authority of the document refers to the relationshiíp between the document"'s subject matter and its author:

6. The competence of the observer - refers to the author's capabilities and qualifications to critically comprehend and report information; and 7. The trustworthiness of the observer refers to the author"'s integrity- whethe r he fabricates or reports truthfully. or she.