Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences 2025

Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are first-hand descriptions of events. They are produced by people who were at the event or lived at that time.

Some primary sources are:

• legal documents,
• science experiments,
• photographs,
• novels and short stories,
• recordings,
• speeches,
• diary entries,
• interviews, e-mails or letters,
• and works of art.
• Even historical newspaper articles are sometimes considered primary sources.

Secondary sources are descriptions, commentaries, interpretations, and evaluations of primary sources. Basically, if something is talking about a primary source, it is a secondary source.