What information source is created by people who witnessed or took part in the event they describe?

What are Primary Sources?

Primary sources convey first-hand experience of the event or time period you’re studying.

Secondary sources convey the experiences of others, or “second-hand” information; they often synthesize a collection of primary sources.

There's also a third group called tertiary sources, which are like "third-hand" information; they usually synthesize a collection of secondary sources.

PRIMARY Sources:

• First-hand accounts by people who experienced event.

• A person's account of own feelings, actions, or experiences.

• Object or document that comes directly from person, place, or event being researched.

SECONDARY Sources:

• Second-hand accounts by people who did not experience event.

• One person's account of someone else's feelings, actions, or experiences.

• Object or document that originates much later than person, place, or event being researched.

• Contains INTERPRETATIONS, analysis, synthesis.

Content Versus Format:

• Is a newspaper always primary, and is a book always secondary? NO.

• "Primary" and "secondary" relate to the CONTENT, not the format.

• Primary sources OFTEN appear in document types such as letters and newspapers, but a source doesn't have to be primary just because of its format. The same is true of sources on paper versus sources on the Internet, and sources which are duplicated as they appear (by scanning or photographing) versus sources which are transcribed (retyped word for word in plain text) -- it's the content that counts.

It's All About CONTEXT:

• There is nothing inherent in a document or object that automatically makes it always be "primary" or "secondary."

• YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION determines whether the source is primary or secondary for YOUR research.

• The same document could be a primary source for one paper and a secondary source for another paper.

• Example: 1975 biography about Abraham Lincoln would probably be a...
  -- Secondary source if you are studying Lincoln’s life.
  -- Primary source if you are studying how people wrote historical biographies in the 1970s.

Not Just Writing

It's important to keep in mind that the idea of "primary sources" doesn't just mean "writing." A photograph can be a primary source. A physical object (anything from an architectural structure to a piece of jewelry to a milk bottle) can also be a primary source.

In fact, in the article "How Objects Speak," while discussing a pair of 17th century scholars who researched Egyptian gnostic gems, author Peter Miller observes:

This was not a subject nor an inquiry that pre-existed them: It was from objects that the scholars derived their questions, and they followed them wherever they led, conquering difficult sources of different kinds along the way.

So keep in mind that physical objects, as preserved pieces of real history, can often be the items which inspire your historical questions in the first place, spurring your research process to begin.

• "How Objects Speak"

  by Peter N. Miller, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 Aug 2014

Primary sources

A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. Primary sources include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups are also primary sources. In the natural and social sciences, primary sources are often empirical studies—research where an experiment was performed or a direct observation was made. The results of empirical studies are typically found in scholarly articles or papers delivered at conferences.

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyze, evaluate, summarize, and process primary sources. Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else's original research. 

Definition courtesy of Ithaca College Library Research Guide, Primary vs Secondary section.

What is a source recorded at the time of an event called?

What source type is a first person account by someone who experience or witness an event?

Are witnesses primary sources?

Which is a source created by someone who did not actually witness the events that took place?