PRIMARY SOURCES

  Some examples of primary sources used by political scientists and historians:

• Diaries and journals
• Speeches
• Interviews
• Letters, memoranda, other types of correspondence
• Memoirs and autobiographies
• Government documents, including congressional hearings, reports, and legislation; departmental and executive directives, regulations, proclamations
• Statistics such as census data, etc.
• Records of organizations, including minutes of meetings, etc.
• Photographs, audio recordings, documentary films or television programs
• Public opinion polls and surveys
• Maps

Strategies for Finding Primary Sources:

•  Use secondary sources to help you find specific primary sources you may wish to use in your research.

There are reference works, such as bibliographies, in which many primary and secondary sources by or about a specific person, or about a specific event, will list documents, etc.

To try to see if there is a reference work for your research question, go into the catalog and try a keyword search, such as:

Eisenhower and bibliography

Vietnam War and encyclopedia

Also, in your reading of biographies or autobiographies, or in journal articles, make note of particular sources in the “footnotes” or “notes” section which you want to find and read for yourself.

•  Use the online library catalog or catalog database such as WorldCat

A)        When searching for primary sources in the catalog, you can look for your subject ( eg ., Castro or the Cuban Missile Crisis) and combine your search with words describing primary source materials

Example: Cuban missile crisis and document* will look for materials which are either documentaries or contain documents pertaining to the Cuban missile crisis

Example: Castro and (correspondence or letters) will look for materials which reference either letters written by or written to Castro

Here is a list of terms to try in your searches:

            ( correspondence or letters)

            document * (for documents, documentary, etc.)

            ( diaries or journals)

            interviews

            personal narratives

            speeches

            memoirs

            papers

            records

            memoranda

            biography

            texts

            archives

           ( statistics or data)         

**Remember when you find a useful record, to see if you can “click on” the hyperlinked subject headings to find more useful sources and search terms.

B) Try an “author” or “subject” search for the person or organization you are researching.

Example: Castro, Fidel

Example: Organization of American States

•  Stuck?   Ask a librarian for help!

Gerri Foudy

10/9/03