1. Primary vs. Secondary Sources
A Quick Refresher

2. Secondary Sources
Start your research with secondary sources. They help familiarize you with your topic and can direct your focus in useful ways.
Secondary sources give context.
Secondary sources are accounts of the past created by people writing about events after they have happened (years after they have happened).
Secondary sources are what historians create.
Examples: Books/textbooks, encyclopedias, articles, websites with generalized information (Wikipedia, History.com, etc.)

3. Secondary Sources… Provide an introduction to a topic.
Provide historical/broader context for a topic
Show how a topic has been interpreted by other historians
Provide hints on where to find primary sources/evidence (mine the bibliographies/footnotes for sources you might also use!)
Provide information which enables historians to make sense of primary sources

4. Secondary Sources: Textbooks
Classroom textbooks or encyclopedias may be one of the first places you look for information about historical events, but they may not contain enough information, or present historical events in an unbiased way.
That is because they are secondary sources; in other words, the authors themselves were not witnesses to all the events included in the books. In most cases, they have also made decisions about what information to include or exclude, which will impact their interpretation and presentation of their material and argument.

5. Primary Sources Are left behind by participants or observers
Make personal connections to the past
Are evidence used by historians to support their interpretation of the past.
There are 6 main categories we can consider in thinking about primary sources:
Published materials
Records
Unpublished materials
Images
Audio/Video
Artifacts

6. Primary Sources
Published materials: Books (including memoirs), magazines, and newspapers contemporary to the event (newspapers from around the time period you are studying)

7. Primary Sources
Unpublished Materials: Diaries, letters, manuscripts

8. Primary Sources
Records: Government documents, census data, birth certificates, organizational minutes, business reports

9. Primary Sources
Images: Photographs, film, art and posters, advertisements, maps

10. Primary Sources
Audio: Oral Histories, Interviews, Recordings

11. Primary Sources
Artifacts: Buildings, tombstones, clothing

12. Questions to Ask (With Any Source):
Who created the source? What is their background? What are their qualifications?
Who is the intended audience?
What kinds of bias (intentional and unintentional) may exist within this source? In what ways, and to what extent, do I need to account for that bias?
In what ways might this source have been influenced by the context in which it was created?
What is happening under the surface?