Primary Sources  

Clip from video interview with World War II Veteran Forrest Gore. (Download Video)

Download this item and watch many other video interviews in the APSU Veterans' Oral History Project.

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A primary source is an original object or document -- the raw material or first-hand information, source material that is closest to what is being studied.

Primary sources vary by discipline and can include historical and legal documents, eye witness accounts, results of an experiment, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, and art objects. In the natural and social sciences, the results of an experiment or study are typically found in scholarly articles or papers delivered at conferences, so those articles and papers that present the original results are considered primary sources.

A secondary source is something written about a primary source. Secondary sources include comments on, interpretations of, or discussions about the original material.  Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that evaluate or criticize someone else's original research.

A tertiary source is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources.

From http://www.lib.umd.edu/guides/primary-sources.html

This video tutorial from the Hartness Library on You Tube offers some good illustrations of the difference between primary and secondary sources.  It also includes an overview of how primary and secondary sources can vary based on a research topic.

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