PRIMARY SOURCES OF REVIEW LITERATURE

PRIMARY SOURCES

 

A primary source is a first-hand or contemporary account of an event or topic. They are the most direct evidence of a time or event because they were created by people or things that were there at the time or event. These sources have not been modified by interpretation and offer original thought or new information. Primary sources are original materials, regardless of format. Letters, diaries, minutes, photographs, artifacts, interviews, and sound or video recordings are examples of primary sources created as a time or event is occurring. Oral histories, newspaper or journal articles, and memoirs or autobiographies are examples of primary sources created after the event or time in question but offering first-hand accounts.

In scholarly writing, the objective of classifying sources is to determine the independence and reliability of sources. Though the terms primary source and secondary source originated in historiography as a way to trace the history of historical ideas, they have been applied to many other fields. For example, these ideas may be used to trace the history of scientific theories, literary elements, and other information that is passed from one author to another.

In scientific literature, a primary source is the original publication of a scientist's new data, results, and theories. In political history, primary sources are documents such as official reports, speeches, pamphlets, posters, or letters by participants, official election returns, and eyewitness accounts. In the history of ideas or intellectual history, the main primary sources are books, essays, and letters written by intellectuals; these intellectuals may include historians, whose books and essays are therefore considered primary sources for the intellectual historian, though they are secondary sources in their own topical fields. In religious history, the primary sources are religious texts and descriptions of religious ceremonies and rituals.

Published materials can be viewed as primary resources if they come from the time period that is being discussed, and were written or produced by someone with firsthand experience of the event. Often primary sources reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer.

 

 

Ø  Examples of Primary Sources

 

·       archives and manuscript material.

·       photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, films.

·       journals, letters and diaries.

·       speeches.

·       scrapbooks.

·       published books, newspapers and magazine clippings published at the time.

·       government publications.

·       oral histories.

 

Ø  To determine if a source is primary or secondary:

 

·        Was the source created by someone directly involved in the events you're studying (primary), or by another researcher (secondary)?

·        Does the source provide original information (primary), or does it summarize information from other sources (secondary)?

·        Are you directly analyzing the source itself (primary), or only using it for background information (secondary).

·        Some types of source are nearly always primary: works of art and literature, raw statistical data, official documents and records, and personal communications,

(e.g. letters, Interviews).