Primary and Secondary Sources
What is a Primary Source?
Historians use primary sources to help them find out what life was like in the past. Primary sources are the “real things” – documents produced in the past that tell of life at that time. Examples of primary sources include:
- Letters
- Newspaper articles
- Magazines
- Advertisements
- Diaries
- Journals
- Photographs
- Maps
- Artifacts
Historians find primary sources to be very helpful because they tell the story of the past through the voices of the people who lived at that time.
But, primary sources can also be tricky, because personal opinions can color the facts. For instance, imagine you read a food critic’s review of a new pizza place that opened in 1984. The critic wrote that the service was poor, the prices were too high and the pizza did not taste good. Does his review mean that the restaurant was really bad? Perhaps the food critic did not like pizza? Or maybe he was in a bad mood when he wrote the review? Historians need to investigate all possibilities to get an accurate view of the past.
What is a Secondary Source?
To get the full picture of the past, historians use secondary sources along with primary resources. Secondary sources are books, literature or other documents produced after the historical event or period. Some examples of secondary sources are:
- History textbooks
- Biographies
- Novels
Primary and secondary sources are the evidence that help historians solve the mysteries of the past!
