This guide provides help with finding the primary sources you need for your research, evaluating those sources, and citing them in your paper's bibliography.
On this page you can find the answers to these questions:
What Are Primary Sources? - a definition and a video tutorial
How Do I Distinguish Between a Primary, a Secondary Source, and a Tertiary Source?
How Should I Compare Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources Across Disciplines?
What Keywords Should I Use? 
- the keywords to use when searching for primary sources
What Questions Should I Ask? -these can help you decide whether a source is primary or secondary
Where Can I Find Primary Sources on the Web? - help from ALA reference librarians
How Can I use WebPath Express to Find Primary Sources on the Web?
Look to other pages of this guide for help in finding primary sources on:
Washington State and Pacific Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon) History
American History
World History
For help with organizing and citing your sources, see:
MLA Works Cited and In-text Citations
Chicago Citation Style
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Primary sources are “first hand”accounts of an event, an occurrence, or a time period produced by a participant or observer at the time, or shortly thereafter. They can be published or unpublished. |
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Typically, primary sources include: Unique documents or manuscripts - letters, diaries, journals, writings, speeches, photographs, scrapbooks, etc. Historic records of an organization - correspondence, memoranda, minutes, annual reports, etc. Government documents - records, maps, and statistical data Artwork and artifacts Music and audiovisual materials - film, audio and video tape Speeches and oral histories - printed transcripts or audio recordings Photographs and advertisements Electronic computer files - including emails This vidoe from HistoryVideos100 explains what primary sources are, and how they differ from secondary sources. |
HistoryVideos100.
Primary vs. Secondary Sources. YouTube. 2 Jan. 2017. Web. 9 Aug. 2019. |
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Primary sources are the surviving original records of a period, eyewitness accounts and first-published documentation of new information. |
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Examples of primary sources include:
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 Gardner, Ella. Public Dance Halls, Their Regulation and
Place in the Recreation of Adolescents. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1929. Accessed November 20, 2015. doi:musdi205http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/musdi.205. |
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Secondary sources interpret the past and analyze primary sources. Examples of secondary sources include:
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 Martin, Carol. "Legislation Relevant to Dance Marathons." Appendix to Dance Marathons: Performing American Culture of the 1920s and 1930s, 147-60. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. Accessed November 20, 2015. Questia School.
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Tertiary sources are distillations and indexes of primary and secondary sources. Examples of tertiary sources include:
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 "'Fads and Crazes.'" Topic Overview to 1920-1929., edited by Judith S. Baughman, Victor Bondi, Richard Layman, Tandy McConnell, and Vincent Tompkins. Vol. 3 American Decades. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2001. Accessed November 20, 2015.
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NoodleTools Inc. "[All Styles] How Do I Distinguish between a Primary Source, a Secondary Source and a Tertiary Source?" In KnowledgeBase, by |
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SUBJECT |
PRIMARY |
SECONDARY |
TERTIARY |
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Art and |
Painting by Manet |
Article critiquing art piece |
ArtStor database |
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Chemistry/Life |
Einstein's diary |
Monograph on Einstein's life |
Dictionary on Theory of Relativity |
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Engineering/ |
Patent |
NTIS database |
User's Manual |
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Humanities |
Letters by Dr. Martin Luther |
Web site on King's writings |
Encyclopedia on Civil Rights Movement |
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Social Sciences |
Notes taken by clinical psychologist |
Magazine article about the psychological condition |
Textbook on clinical psychology |
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Performing Arts |
Movie filmed in 1942 |
Biography of the director |
Guide to the movie |
Teaching and Learning Services. "Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources." University of Maryland Libraries. Last modified February 3, 2014. Accessed
November 20, 2015. http://www.lib.umd.edu/tl/guides/primary-sources.
Search over 100,000 relevant, accurate, and up-to-date websites.
Narrow results by:
Topic
Source Type (dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, magazine, news, primary source)
Format (media types such as eBook, interactive, music, video, animation, audio, image)
Language (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and many others)
Domain (.gov, .com. .ca, .ru, etc.)
Your initial search will show results in the 'Books' tab.
Click on the 'Websites' tab.
Look for the Dropdown menu on the right. This is for filtering your results.
Click on the '+' symbol on the right of each criteria to see how you can sort and filter your results.
This subject guide is based on the History - Primary Sources guide created by Robert Hudson, Reference Librarian, for Cape Fear Community College Libraries in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Using the General Keyword search box - type in your topic plus one of the following words or phrases:
Archive Source*
Correspondence
Diar* (this retrieves both
Diary and Diaries)
History Archive*
History Document*
History Source*
Interview*
Letter*
Personal Narrative*
Primary source*
Speech*
Note: Use of the * at the end of a word will search for both singular and plural forms.
In the Arts:
1. Was the source created during the time period you're studying? If the answer is yes, you are looking at a primary source.
2. Is it an object from a particular time in history? (Archie Bunker's chair? An Emily Dickinson poem?) This also counts as a primary source.
3. Was the source written after an event took place? If so, it is a secondary source.
In the Sciences:
1. Is the source reporting original research?
2. Did the author(s) carry out this original research?
If the answer to the two above questions is yes, it is a primary source.
Based on the How Do I...: Find Primary Sources guide created by the librarians at Cline Library, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Find books, digital resources (ebooks), WebPath Express websites, and Open Educational Resources (OER).
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