Primary & Secondary Sources: What's the Difference?
Primary Sources
First-hand accounts by people who experienced event.
A person's account of own feelings, actions, or experiences.
Object or document that comes directly from person, place, or event being researched.
Secondary Sources
Second-hand accounts by people who did not experience event.
One person's account of someone else's feelings, actions, or experiences.
Object or document that originates much later than person, place, or event being researched.
Contains interpretations or analysis.
A Word About News Sources
Newspapers aren't always primary sources.
Newspaper is a format of information, referring to how the information is packaged or organized.
"Primary" and "secondary" relate to the content, or the information itself.
Example:
1975 newspaper article about prohibition is a secondary source if it's an analysis of the impact of prohibition as the century progressed.
1924 newspaper article about prohibition is a primary source because it was written during prohibition and documenting its impact on society in the 1920s.
