The document discusses classifying primary and secondary sources for history research. It defines primary sources as artifacts or eyewitness accounts created during the time period studied, while secondary sources are accounts written after the events by non-eyewitnesses. However, determining if a source is primary or secondary depends on the specific historical inquiry. The document also notes challenges students may face in classifying certain sources and the importance of using multiple sources to understand historical events.

1. Primary and Secondary Sources
DR. MELISSA JORDINE
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO

2. Outline of Presentation
 Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide that
can be adapted for students at different grade levels
 Classifying sources
 Challenges for students
 Providing context and thinking about other aspects
of primary sources
 History Day Topic for this year and specific
suggestions for sources students can use and how to
classify them
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3. Third Edition is the most recent: you can use
or adapt exercises
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4. Methods & Skills: Chapter 9
 I can e-mail you a pdf file consisting of the first half
of Chapter 9, if you or a teacher who could not attend
today are interested.
 This chapter begins with an interesting story about
how identity was established in the 16th century and
uses this story to point out that “evidence” can be
problematic. The chapter focuses on the issues of
identifying and analyzing sources and stresses the
importance of corroborating evidence in History.
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5. Methods & Skills: Chapter 9
 Introduces the following concepts: 1)Bias
2) Specialized information that might be needed or
changes in the meaning of words over time 3)
Informed Common Sense
 #3 is problematic: If I were to say that Otto von
Bismarck could not leave the house because the door
was closed, your common sense would reject this
statement although it is absolutely true.
 (The Otto in this specific case is a Dachshund and not
the German Chancellor responsible for Unification)
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6. Primary Sources
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7. Primary source: (Methods and Skills)
 -- An artifact or source created during the time
period under study.
 -- A first-hand or eyewitness account by a person
who observed or participated in the event being
studied; implies that all individuals living during the
time period in which an event occurs are primary
sources
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8. Books and Articles For audio, click here

9. Secondary Source (Methods & Skills)
 An account written after the events have taken place,
by someone who did not observe or participate in the
event. Most secondary sources do not just describe
but also analyze and/or interpret the event. The best
secondary sources use primary sources as a basis for
their inquiry, and as evidence for their key points or
argument, but also consult all relevant secondary
sources.
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10. Definitions are relatively good . . .
 However, the idea that anyone living during a
particular period is a primary source for events that
occur during that period has produced considerable
debate among historians who are not in complete
agreement about this issue.
 Is George Washington a primary source in regard to
the British treatment of American prisoners of war?
 Is someone who watched, on live television, the
Berlin Wall being torn down a primary source?
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11. Keep in Mind: Historians never classify or analyze
Not Historians sources in a vacuum
Source (s)
Source (s) Source (s)
Herodotus
and other
Historians
Historical Inquiry about
Question the past
Black Hole
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12. Key points about sources that students need to be
actively taught:
 Format: letter, book, article etc. does not determine
whether a source is primary or secondary
 Historical inquiry or specific focus/question
determines whether a source is primary, secondary,
or both
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13. Key points & Students
Primary Sources are not inherently more accurate or
unbiased than secondary sources
 Sources can lie or omit key points; individuals can be
biased and thus write “facts” that they believe are
true such as that women are incapable of
understanding concepts in math and science.
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14. Key points and students
 No one source can tell us about an event; historians
use multiple sources preferably from different
perspectives
 Historians go back and forth between secondary and
primary sources and review dozens of sources before
reaching any, even tentative, conclusions
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15. Using sources in class:
 A) explain to students what they are doing and what
they are not doing (how what they are doing differs
from an in-depth historical inquiry)
 B) provide necessary background or context in some
form (lecture, reading assigned as homework, brief
excerpt reviewed in class)
 C) use secondary and primary sources and choose
carefully (some sources are more “exciting” but less
relevant to the topic
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16. Sources that are difficult for students to classify:
 Works with a narrative and primary sources located
in the back of the book
 Sources that include statistics, quotes, and extensive
information from primary sources
 Sources that provide an introduction or context
before letters, interviews, or excerpts from memoirs
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17. Other Issues
 Archival Sources:
 Often in classroom exercises only one or two sources
from a much larger number of relevant works are
used and this is problematic.
 Also, truly understanding the context of such sources
requires in-depth research to use them effectively.
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18. Other Issues:
 Stephen Ambrose is a prominent U.S. historian who
claimed to have interviewed Eisenhower for hundreds of
hours and whose many works influenced scholarship on
Eisenhower and key issues. Recently archivists and
historians have uncovered evidence that seem to indicate
he falsified information and only interviewed Eisenhower
for about five hours total.
 “Ambrose on Eisenhower: The Impact of a Single Faulty
Quotation” by Ira Chernus. Link to this article:
http://www.hnn.us/articles/126636.html
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19. History Day Theme:
 Debate and Diplomacy in History
 Incredible opportunity for students to do research using
foreign diplomatic papers.
 Students can use Documents on British foreign policy or on
U.S. foreign policy
 However, students can also use volumes (translated into
English) containing documents on German Foreign Policy,
Austrian Foreign policy, Soviet Foreign Policy; all available at
Henry Madden Library on the Fresno State campus.
 Students will have access to a far broader range of primary
sources for a vast number of topics for History Day this year.
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20. History Day Projects & Classifying Sources
 In addition to the usual rules distinguishing primary
and secondary, there are two additional points:
 Volumes of documents on Foreign Policy should be listed as
primary sources, even if there is some background information
or commentary.
 If a student is using only the background information or
commentary in a volume that has primary sources, than the
source would be classified as secondary for the purposes of
their paper.
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21. Volumes of Primary Source Documents
 If a student is using both commentary and/or
background information and using primary sources
contained in one book or volume than they should
indicate this in the first footnote (after citing the
source in correct Turabian format) and state that all
subsequent footnotes will indicate whether the
information being cited is primary or secondary in
parentheses at the end of the citation.
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