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WHAT ARE PRIMARY SOURCES?
Primary sources allow the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. A primary source reflects the viewpoint of someone actually involved or nearby. Some examples of primary sources are:
- Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts and other papers in which individuals describe events in which they were participants or observers
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Memoirs and autobiographies. These may be less reliable than diaries or letters since they are usually written long after events occurred and may be distorted by bias, dimming memory, or the revised perspective that may come with hindsight. On the other hand, they are sometimes the only source for certain information
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Records of or information collected by government agencies. Many kinds of records (births, deaths, marriages; permits and licences issued; census data; etc.) document conditions in society
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Records of organizations. The minutes, reports, correspondence, etc. of an organization or agency serve as an ongoing record of the activity and thinking of that organization or agency.
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Published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper articles) written at the time about a particular event. These may be first-person accounts, but are often written by journalists or other observers. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis
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Photographs, audio recordings, and moving pictures or video recordings, documenting an event
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Materials that document the attitudes and popular thought of a historical time period. If you are attempting to find evidence documenting the mentality or psychology of an era, or of a group (evidence of a world view, a set of attitudes, or the popular understanding of an event or condition), the most obvious source is public opinion polls taken at the time. Since these are generally very limited in availability and in what they reveal, however, it is also possible to make use of ideas and images conveyed in the mass media, and even in literature, film, popular fiction, textbooks, etc. Again, the point is to use these sources, written or produced at the time, as evidence of how people were thinking
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Research data such as anthropological field notes, the results of scientific experiments, and other scholarly activity of the time
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Artifacts of all kinds: physical objects, buildings, furniture, tools, appliances and household items, clothing, toys
FINDING PRIMARY SOURCES
A good first step in finding primary materials is to look in the library's
reference collection. These sources, including encyclopedias, chronologies,
fact books, and indexes, will give you a good overview of the topic, will
outline the basic historical context, and will help you identify key participants,
dates and publications associated with your topic. If you have specific
people in mind already, biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias will
give you background information and bibliographies of primary and secondary
sources.
When searching for books, try these KEYWORDS, either alone or in conjunction with your topic
- Biography
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- Interviews
- Letters
- Personal Narratives
- Public Opinion
- Sources
- Speeches
PRIMARY SOURCES ON THE INTERNET
There are many ways of finding primary sources online today; some of the material you find will be a copy of the actual material, i.e., a handwritten page from an 18th century diary, and sometimes you will find the text and/or translated version of the material. Some web sites to visit:
EVALUATE YOUR SOURCE
As you do with all print and online material, ask questions!
- How does this author know this information? Was he/she present at the event?
- Where does the information come from - personal experience, eyewitnesses, or secondary reports?
- Is this version of an event corroborated by other evidence? Newspapers, interviews?
REFERENCES:
UCBerkeley
Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), American Library Association
UCSanta
Cruz
UCRiverside
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This page is created and maintained by Linda
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