Primary sources are original materials created during the time under study that provide firsthand accounts of events or experiences. Examples include diaries, letters, newspaper articles, photos, and official government documents from the relevant time period. Secondary sources are analyses and interpretations of events created after the fact. They include textbooks, scholarly articles, documentaries, and historical novels. While secondary sources may provide more perspectives, primary sources provide a direct view of the period without the filter of hindsight.

1. An Introduction to
Primary and Secondary Sources

2. What are primary sources?
Original records from the past recorded by
people who were:
Involved in the event
Witnessed the event, OR
Knew the persons involved in the event

3. What are primary sources?
They can also be objects (artifacts) or visual
evidence.
They give you an idea about what people
alive at the time saw or thought about the
event.

4. Determine if Primary Source
Ask yourself:
•Was it produced,
written, or painted
DURING a specific
time period?
•Did the person live
DURING the time or
event?

5. What are primary sources?
Keep in mind that a primary source reflects
only one point of view and may contain a
person’s bias (prejudice) toward an event.

6. Examples of primary sources:
Books, magazines, newspapers
from the time period
Printed Publications from specific time periods

7. Examples of primary sources:
Personal Records written by people a during specific
time period
Diaries, journals, records

8. Diary of Anne Frank

9. Examples of primary sources:
Visual Materials of specific time
periods
Paintings, drawings, sculpture

10. Examples of primary sources:
Visual Materials of specific time
periods
photographs, film, maps

11. Examples of primary sources:
Oral Histories
Chronicles, memoirs, myths, legends passed down by
word of mouth

12. Examples of primary sources:
Speeches & Interviews
Original drafts, photos, or recordings of the original
speech or interview are primary sources
Watch MLK “I Have a Dream”
speech

13. Examples of primary sources:
Songs and Poems from
specific time period

14. Examples of primary sources:
Artifacts
Tools, ornaments, objects

15. What are secondary sources?
Secondary sources are made at a later time.
They include written information by
historians or others AFTER an event has
taken place.

16. What are secondary sources?
Although they can be useful and reliable,
they cannot reflect what people who lived at
the time thought or felt about the event.
But they can represent a more fair account
of the event because they can include more
than one point of view, or may include
information that was unavailable at the time
of the event.

17. Determine if Secondary Source
Ask yourself:
•Was it produced,
written, or painted
AFTER a specific
time period?
•Did the person live
AFTER the time or
event?

18. Examples of secondary sources:
Textbooks, biographies,
histories, newspaper report
by someone who was not
present

19. Examples of secondary sources:
Charts, graphs, or images
created AFTER the time
period.

20. Name that Source!
The following slides contain examples of
primary and secondary sources. See if you can
classify each example as a primary or secondary
source.

21. Classify these: primary or
secondary?

22. Classify these:

23. Classify these:

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28. Classify these:

29. The End