Primary and Secondary Sources

welcome to sources primary and secondary a writer uses the research process to explore a topic and answer questions about that topic before you begin to conduct research you must first decide what you will research and how you will find information good writers use a variety of print and digital resources to conduct their research it is important to use several different sources so that you can be sure the information you are finding is accurate [Music] also using a variety of sources will provide you with different types of information so that you can get a broader picture

of your topic there are two different types of sources primary sources and secondary sources a primary source is produced by a person who actually witnessed and experienced an event firsthand for example a diary entry written by meriwether lewis about the expedition to explore the american west would be a primary source because lewis experienced this event first hand and then recorded it a few examples of types of primary sources include oral histories or memoirs interviews music photographs letters diaries maps and advertisements the important thing to remember is that to be a primary source it must have

been used or produced by someone with first-hand experience of an event to find primary documents on the internet try typing the following into the search engine topic plus primary source for example revolutionary war plus primary source while primary sources are the original records created by first-hand witnesses of events secondary sources are created by people who are not present during the events but who reference the primary sources for information secondary sources are often written well after the events they report on and can put past information into a historical context informational text about the revolutionary war is

an excellent example of a secondary source because the authors were not present at the time of the events discussed in the book however they research the events using other sources of information in order to write about them it is important to remember that secondary sources are derived from primary information they can be summaries of primary sources or can analyze and interpret primary sources a few examples of secondary sources include [Music] dictionaries encyclopedias textbooks biographies books written about events articles that review other sources and book reviews now it's time for you to practice identifying primary and

secondary sources look closely at the list of sources decide whether each source is a primary source or a secondary source pause the video and click play when you have finished now take a look at each example and identify the source as primary or secondary interviews are primary sources because the person being interviewed actually witnessed and experienced an event first hand dictionaries are secondary sources because they are created by people who reference information letters are primary sources the author of the letter is writing about his or her own experiences photographs are taken by people who are

witnessing an event firsthand the photograph is a snapshot in time of something they experienced photographs are primary sources textbooks are secondary sources because they are written by people who reference primary sources for the information included in the textbooks diaries are primary sources because they are first-hand accounts of the lives of people diaries include the thoughts and ideas of people who journal [Music] encyclopedias are secondary sources because the information in encyclopedias is gathered from verified primary sources biographies are also secondary sources information for a biography is gathered and written by people who research the lives of

individuals information is collected from primary sources therefore biographies are secondary sources thank you for participating in sources primary and secondary you