The Research Process: A Step-By-Step Guide

Use the links in the table below to navigate the Step-By-Step Guide.

Understanding Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary sources are first-hand accounts of an event, a person's life, original works of literature, and historical facts. Primary sources offer an immediate picture. They are in their original form, usually without explanation or interpretation. They may be biased, one-sided and emotional because of a limited perspective.

Secondary sources are often written by people who were not present when the event occurred or the person under study was alive. Or, they are written by scholars who have themselves carefully studied primary source material and drawn their own conclusions from it. Secondary sources may be biased, one-sided and emotional, just as primary sources may be.

One type of source is not more or less reliable than the other. Secondary sources are just further removed from the action than primary sources.

Primary sources may include:

• eyewitness accounts
• some newspaper articles
• diaries
• personal journals
• autobiographies
• memoirs
• some government documents such as transcripts of court cases or excerpts from the US Code
• speeches
• photographs
• videos
• letters
• wills
• interviews
• oral history
• original research in an academic journal
• minutes of meetings
• journals of legislative bodies
• constitutions, statutes, presidential proclamations

Secondary sources may include:

• general histories
• biographies
• encyclopedia articles
• dictionaries
• editorials
• literary criticism
• scholarly literature reviews
• textbooks
• some government documents
• popular magazine articles

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