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    • English 1S- Professor Tabayoyong LibGuide

    All of LBCC's Databases A-Z

    Use the A-Z listing to find the best library databases for your research. Have ideas for a new database? Let your Librarian know!

    Finding Primary Sources For This Prompt

    Types of Sources

    Primary Sources

    Primary sources are most easily thought of as interview, diaries, or even interviews with individuals who were present during a historical event or experiment.

    • For example, witnesses of the Boston Bombing could take a picture and tweet their experiences and this would be considered a primary source. But a retweet of that same tweet would not be considered primary, because the retweeter was not at the bombings. They are merely reporting on the primary source.

    Other examples of primary sources include:

    • Diary of Anne Frank - Experiences of a Jewish family during WWII
    • The Constitution of Canada - Canadian History
    • A journal article reporting new research or findings
    • Weavings and pottery - Native American history
    • Plato's Republic - Women in Ancient Greece

    Primary Sources can be excerpts from emails and witness testimony that we see summarized in books, articles, and the evening news. Primary sources can be found in academic databases as well, like biographical and historical databases. 

    "Primary sources can be either published or unpublished, and can be found in many formats, such as manuscripts, books, microfilm, photographs, video and sound recordings. Some primary sources are available in more than one format -- for example, a collection of manuscript letters may also have been published in book form, or may have been digitized and made available on the Internet" (Princeton University, 2020).

    Primary sources may not be the objective truth. As humans, we encode our own perspectives and biases into our work. So, it is possible to have multiple primary sources perceive and report on an event in different, even conflicting ways.

    Secondary Sources

    A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources are one or more steps removed from the event. Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources in them. Some types of secondary sources include textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias.

    These sources are created after a historical event by people who were not directly involved.

    Most books are secondary because they are written by historians and scholars studying a past event or are removed from the phenomenon. Peer reviewed journals written by scholars, who are not the scientists who conducted the experiment, are also secondary in nature.

    • For example, biographies are secondary because they are written by scholars who were not present during the life of the individual. Similarly, books about a presidential administration, or a military invasion, are secondary if they are written by a scholar who was not present during the events. These books can contain primary sources, however, such as letters, emails, and interviews with individuals who were present.

    Other examples of secondary sources include:

    • A journal/magazine article which interprets or reviews previous findings
    • A history textbook
    • A book about the effects of WWI

    Information courtesy of Princeton University Libraries - http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html

    Adopted from Open Educational Resource Textbook LIB1: Information and Media Literacy (2020).

    Tertiary Sources

    These sources of information do a good job distilling information from other sources. They often compile information from multiple sources. They can catalog and index this information as well.

    You will find tertiary sources are out to repackage or merely summarize material on a topic. They do not really carry an inherent bias or perspective. They just help researchers and individuals understand how broad a subject, and how multifaceted a phenomenon, is.

    • An index of phone numbers, a statistical abstract, a textbook could all be considered a tertiary source.
    • Even a compilation video on YouTube could be considered a tertiary source because its pulling from multiple primary and secondary sources to provide a multi-faceted picture of a topic.

    Adopted from Open Educational Resource Textbook LIB1: Information and Media Literacy (2020)