Primary Sources Need to Be Read Critically by Historians Because

ii-Types of Sources

Main, Secondary & Third Sources

Another way to categorize information is by whether information is in its original format or has been reinterpreted.

Another information category is called publication fashion and has to do with whether the information is

• Firsthand data (information in its original course, not translated or published in some other form).
• Secondhand information (a restatement, analysis, or interpretation of original information).
• Third-mitt information (a summary or repackaging of original information, often based on secondary information that has been published).

The three labels for information sources in this category are, respectively, primary sources, secondary sources, and tertiary sources. Hither are examples to illustrate the offset- handedness, second-handedness, and third-handedness of information:

Primary Source (Original, Firsthand Information)	J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye.
Secondary Source (Secondhand Information)	A book review of Catcher in the Rye, even if the reviewer has a different stance than anyone else has e'er published near the book- he or she is even so but reviewing the original work and all the information near the book hither is secondary.
Tertiary Source (Third-manus Information)	Wikipedia page virtually J.D. Salinger.

When you make distinctions between chief, secondary, and 3rd sources, you are relating the information itself to the context in which it was created. Agreement that relationship is an important skill that you lot'll need in higher, as well every bit in the workplace. Noting the relationship between cosmos and context helps united states of america empathize the "big picture" in which data operates and helps us figure out which information we can depend on. That's a big function of thinking critically, a major benefit of actually becoming an educated person.

Primary Sources – Considering information technology is in its original form, the data in primary sources has reached usa from its creators without going through any filter. We get it firsthand. Here are some examples that are often used as master sources:

• Whatever literary work, including novels, plays, and poems.
• Breaking news.
• Diaries.
• Advertisements.
• Music and dance performances.
• Eyewitness accounts, including photographs and recorded interviews.
• Artworks.
• Data.
• Blog entries that are autobiographical.
• Scholarly blogs that provide data or are highly theoretical, even though they contain no autobiography.
• Artifacts such as tools, clothing, or other objects.
• Original documents such as tax returns, matrimony licenses, and transcripts of trials.
• Websites, although many are secondary.
• Buildings.
• Correspondence, including email.
• Records of organizations and government agencies.
• Journal articles that report research for the get-go fourth dimension (at least the parts virtually the new enquiry, plus their data).

Secondary Source – These sources are translated, repackaged, restated, analyzed, or interpreted original information that is a primary source. Thus, the information comes to the states secondhand, or through at to the lowest degree one filter. Here are some examples that are often used as secondary sources:

• All nonfiction books and mag manufactures except autobiography.
• An article or website that critiques a novel, play, painting, or piece of music.
• An article or web site that synthesizes practiced opinion and several bystander accounts for a new understanding of an upshot.
• The literature review portion of a periodical article.

3rd Source – These sources farther repackage the original information because they index, condense, or summarize the original.

Typically, by the time third sources are developed, in that location have been many secondary sources prepared on their subjects, and you lot can call back of 3rd sources as data that comes to u.s. "third-hand." Tertiary sources are usually publications that you are not intended to read from cover to embrace only to dip in and out of for the data yous need. You can retrieve of them every bit a good place for background information to first your research but a bad place to end upwardly. Here are some examples that are oft used every bit third sources:

• Almanacs.
• Dictionaries.
• Guide books, including the one you are now reading.
• Survey articles.
• Timelines.
• Bibliographies.
• Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia.
• Most textbooks.

3rd sources are unremarkably not acceptable as cited sources in higher inquiry projects because they are and so far from firsthand information. That'due south why nigh professors don't want y'all to use Wikipedia as a citable source: the information in Wikipedia is far from original information. Other people have considered it, decided what they think about it, rearranged it, and summarized it–all of which is really what your professors want y'all, non another author, to exercise with information in your research projects.

The Details Are Tricky— A few things virtually principal or secondary sources might surprise you:

• Sources go primary rather than always exist equally chief sources.

It's piece of cake to call up that it is the format of primary sources that makes them chief. Simply that's non all that matters. And so when yous see lists like the one above of sources that are often used as primary sources, it's wise to remember that the ones listed are not automatically already chief sources. Firsthand sources go that designation simply when researchers actually find their data relevant and utilize it.

For instance: Records that could be relevant to those studying regime are created every solar day past federal, state, county, and city governments as they operate. But until those raw data are actually used by a researcher, they cannot be considered primary sources.

Another example: A diary about his flying missions kept by an American helicopter airplane pilot in the Viet Nam War is non a primary source until, say, a researcher uses it in her study of how the war was carried out. Merely it will never be a primary source for a researcher studying the U.S. public's reaction to the state of war because it does not comprise information relevant to that study.

• Primary sources, even eyewitness accounts, are non necessarily accurate. Their accuracy has to be evaluated, just similar that of all sources.
• Something that is unremarkably considered a secondary source can be considered a chief source, depending on the enquiry project.

For instance, film reviews are usually considered secondary sources. But if your enquiry project is about the effect movie reviews have on ticket sales, the movie reviews you study would get primary sources.

• Deciding whether to consider a periodical article a primary or a secondary source can exist complicated for at least 2 reasons.

Outset, journal manufactures that written report new research for the first time are unremarkably based on data. So some disciplines consider the data to be the principal source, and the periodical article that describes and analyzes them is considered a secondary source.

However, particularly in the sciences, the original researcher might find it difficult or impossible (he or she might not be immune) to share the data. So sometimes you have nix more firsthand than the journal article, which argues for calling it the relevant primary source considering it's the closest matter that exists to the data.

2nd, fifty-fifty journal articles that announce new enquiry for the showtime time usually incorporate more than data. They also typically contain secondary source elements, such as a literature review, bibliography, and sections on information analysis and estimation. So they tin actually be a mix of primary and secondary elements. Fifty-fifty so, in some disciplines, a journal article that announces new research findings for the first time is considered to be, every bit a whole, a primary source for the researchers using it.

ACTIVITY: Under What Circumstances?

Instructions: Await at each of the sources listed beneath and think of circumstances under which each could get a primary source. (In that location are probably many potential circumstances for each.) Then just imagine you are a researcher with projects that would brand each item firsthand information that is relevant to your work. What could a projection be about that would make each source relevant firsthand information? Our answers are at the bottom of the page, simply remember that in that location are many more–including the ones y'all think of that nosotros didn't!

1. Fallingwater, a Pennsylvania home designed and constructed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1930s.
2. Poet W.H. Auden's elegy for Y.S. Yeats.
3. An arrowhead made past (Floriday) Seminole Native Americans but found at Flint Ridge outside Columbus, Ohio.
4. E-postal service between the U.Southward. ambassador to the United nations, Nikki Haley, and her staff about North Korea.
5. A matrimony license.

Despite their trickiness, what primary sources unremarkably offer is too good not to consider using considering:

• They are original. This unfiltered, immediate information is not available anywhere else.
• Their creator was a type of person unlike others in your research project, and you want to include that perspective.
• Their creator was present at an result and shares an eyewitness account.
• They are objects that existed at the particular time your project is studying.

Peculiarly in humanities courses, your professor may require y'all to apply a certain number of primary sources for your projection. In other courses, especially in the sciences, yous may be required to use only primary sources.

What are considered primary and secondary sources can vary from subject to discipline. If y'all are required to utilize primary sources for your research project, earlier getting likewise deep into your projection check with your professor to make certain he or she agrees with your choices. Later all, it's your professor who volition be grading your project. A librarian, too, can verify your choices. Just remember to take a copy of your assignment with you when yous ask, because the librarian will want to see the original consignment. Afterwards all, that'southward a chief source!

POSSIBLE ANSWERS TO Action: Under What Circumstances?

1. Yous are doing a written report of the entrances Wright designed for homes, which were smaller than other architects of the fourth dimension typically designed entrances.
2. Your research project is virtually the Auden-Yeats relationship.
3. Your enquiry projection is about trade amongst 19th century Native Americans eastward of the Mississippi River.
4. Your enquiry projection is on how Administrator Haley conveyed a decision about North korea to her staff.
5. Yous are writing near the life of a person who claimed to have married several times, and yous need more than her statements almost when those marriages took place and to whom.

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Source: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/choosingsources/chapter/primary-secondary-tertiary-sources/

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