Primary vs. Secondary Sources

In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called original source or evidence) is an artifact, a document, a recording, or other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. A secondary source is any source about an event, period, or issue in history that was produced after that event, period or issue has passed. 

Primary Sources: Primary sources provide a window into the past with 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. Bringing young people into close contact with these unique, often profoundly personal, documents and objects can give them a very real sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era.Primary sources help students relate in a personal way to events of the past and promote a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events. Because primary sources are snippets of history, they encourage students to seek additional evidence through research. First-person accounts of events helps make them more real, fostering active reading and response. Many state standards support teaching with primary sources, which require students to be both critical and analytical as they read and examine documents and

objects. Primary sources are often incomplete and have little context. Students must use prior knowledge and work with multiple primary sources to find patterns. In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to questioning and making inferences about the materials. Questions of creator bias, purpose, and point of view may challenge students’ assumptions. Inquiry into primary sources encourages students to wrestle with contradictions and compare multiple sources that represent differing points of view, confronting the complexity of the past. Students

construct knowledge as they form reasoned conclusions, base their conclusions on evidence, and connect primary sources to the context in which they were created, synthesizing information from multiple sources. Integrating what they glean from comparing primary sources with what they already know, and what they learn from research, allows students to construct content knowledge and deepen understanding.




Secondary Sources are those which are written ABOUT events in the past. They usually interpret those events through the lens of the time period in which they are written. New discoveries are made and attitudes change over time causing understandings of past events to change. Facts may remain consistent, but interpretations change, sometimes drastically. 


 Sources that have been published very recently will reflect the current theories and understanding of the past. If you use a secondary source that was published decades ago, it is important to know what subsequent scholars have written on the topic and what criticism they have made about the earlier work or its approach to the topic.