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Definitions: Primary Sources
Primary sources are usually defined as accounts or artifacts generated by an eyewitness or participant in past events. Interpretation and evaluation of these primary sources becomes the basis for historical narrative. Evaluating whether something can be used as a primary source depends on two things:
Proximity to the source. Ideally the best type of source material comes from a person or process that is closest in time or proximity to the event, person or place under study. Usually the creator of this type of primary source is an eyewitness who left a record for personal or procedural purposes. Reliability of sources declines as one get farther in time and proximity.
Questions asked. Determining whether a source is a primary source often depends on the questions asked of it by the researcher.
For example...A history text from the 1950s about the rise of Catholicism in America is usually considered a secondary source. However, a researcher investigating prevailing attitudes about religion in the 1950s may consider this work a primary source. |
