biography of secondary source

Primary vs. Secondary Sources: Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary vs. secondary sources, primary sources.

Primary sources are materials that are eyewitness accounts or as close to the original source as possible.

Qualitative data:

• What people say. They are usually Speeches , Interviews and Conversations, and they may be captured in Videos, Audio Recordings, or transcribed into text.
• What people write.  These include Autobiographies, Memoirs, Personal Journals and Diaries, Letters, Emails, Blogs, Twitter Feeds and other forms of Social Media.
• Images and Videos.
• Government Documents-- U.S . and rest of the world.
• Laws, Court Cases and Decisions, Treaties.
• Newspapers.

Quantitative data:

• Statistics and Data .
• Polls and Public Opinions .

Please note that a book is simply a format.  You can find both primary and secondary sources published in book form.

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are interpretations and analyses based on primary sources.

For example, an autobiography is a primary source while a biography is a secondary source.

Typical secondary sources include:

• Scholarly Journal Articles.  Use these and books exclusively for writing Literature Reviews.
• Encyclopedias.
• Dictionaries.
• Documentaries.

Please note that a book is simply a format.  You can find primary and secondary sources published in book form.

When Secondary Sources Become Primary Sources

Often secondary and primary sources are relative concepts.  Typical secondary sources may be primary sources depending on the research topic.

• Intellectual history topics. For example, although scholarly journal articles are usually considered secondary sources, if one's topic is the history of human rights, then journal articles on human rights will be primary sources in this instance.  Similarly, research on the thinking of a scholar will include her published journal articles as primary sources.  
• Historical topics. Magazine articles are secondary sources, but for someone researching the view of judicial punishment in the 1920s, magazines from that time period are primary sources.  Indeed, any older publication, such as those prior to the 20th century, is very often automatically considered a primary source.  
• Newspapers may be either primary or secondary. Most articles in newspapers are secondary, but reporters may be considered as witnesses to an event.  Any topic on the media coverage of an event or phenomenon would treat newspapers as a primary source.  There are so many articles and types of articles in newspapers that newspapers can often be considered either primary or secondary.
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Definitions (from Pennington School)

Examples (from penington school), selected sources.

• Analyzing Primary Sources
• Determining Primary vs. Secondary Sources (from Fresno State Univ.)
• Primary Source Databases
• Web Resources
• E-Books This link opens in a new window

A primary source is an original material created during the time under study. Primary sources can be original documents, creative works, published materials of the times, institutional and government documents or relics and artifacts

Secondary sources put primary sources in context. They comment, summarize, interpret or analyze information found in primary sources. Secondary sources are usually written by individuals who did not experience firsthand the events about which they are writing.

• Primary, Secondary or Tertiary Sources Tertiary sources: good for an overview; can help narrow a topic Secondary sources: sources created after the time of the event and not contemporaneous with the lifetime of the person Primary sources: original objects or documents created near the time being studied.
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• Harvard Library
• Research Guides
• Faculty of Arts & Sciences Libraries

Library Research Guide for the History of Science: Introduction

• What is a Secondary Source?
• Background and Context/Biography
• Exploring Your Topic
• Using HOLLIS

Page Contents

Recognizing secondary sources, find secondary sources, finding bibliographies.

• What is a Primary Source?
• Exploring the Special Collections at Harvard
• Citing Sources & Organizing Research
• Recognizing Secondary Sources
• Finding Secondary Sources

Secondary sources were created by someone who did not experience first-hand or participate in the events or conditions you’re researching. For a historical research project, secondary sources are generally scholarly books and articles.

A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources are one or more steps removed from the event. Secondary sources may contain pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources.

Some types of secondary source include:  Textbooks; journal articles; histories; criticisms; commentaries; encyclopedias 

Examples of secondary sources include:

• A scholarly article about water and bathing in Mexico City, 1850-1920
• A book about the psychological effects of WWI
• A 2019 U.S. government document examining the work of African Americans at two Manhattan Project sites
• An NPR piece on race and vaccine skepticism

For a historical research project, secondary sources are usually scholarly books and articles, but as you can see from this list there are other possibilties.

History of Science, Technology and Medicine (Harvard Login)  (1975- ) is an index of books, book chapters, and journal articles. Some social sciences material is included. 

• HSTM is an amalgamation of four separate indexes with four different subject term systems; study the results of keyword searches to be sure that you know the proper subject terms for your topic in each of the, possibly four, relevant component databases. For example, the Wellcome Bibliography uses "Contraception" but the Isis Current Bibliography uses "Birth control".
• If you want to limit the coverage of your sources to a particular era, put one of these terms in a search box:  Antiquity or Ancient - “Greek and Roman” - “Middle Ages” or medieval - 13th  century - 14th century - 15 th  century - 16 th  century - 17th century - 18th century - 19th century - 20th century
• More detailed information about the use of this complex database.

ISISCB Bibliographic Resources in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine  indexes the Isis Current Bibliography.  Search results extend back to 1970.  It also offers a browse of the  Isis Cumulative Bibliographies  (1913-1975).  Search ISISCB Explore

PubMed (Harvard Login for full text access)  (1947- ) is the National Library of Medicine's index to biomedical journal articles.

• To limit to historical sources, attach the phrase (in"") "historical article" to your search. Example: "Psychology, clinical" and "historical article".
• Be sure to look for MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) on pertinent records by scrolling down past the abstracts. (Not all records in PubMed have MeSH terms.) Subject headings can help you get to more relevant records and/or can be helpful keyword suggestions.

America: History and Life (Harvard login)  is the primary bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.

Historical Abstracts (Harvard Login)  is a reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life, above).

• Both allow coverage date limitations as well as publication date limitations, Can usually use LC terms, not always 

Bibliography of British and Irish History (Harvard Login)  provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British empire and commonwealth, during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present.

• At the link above, choose BBIH from the top row of options.

The Forest History Society Research Portal  offers over 45,000 citations to published items on environmental history, over 30,000 photographs, and other material.

Web of Science Citation Indexes (Harvard Login)  (for historical articles1956- ) includes articles in all areas of science. You can use the Cited Reference Search in Web of Science to find secondary source articles that cite a specified secondary or primary source article or book. More information .

Library Guide to the History of Science Your guide to the History of Science at Harvard. It has more extensive lists of resources and tools than this introductory guide does.

There may already be a detailed list of sources, a bibliography, for your topic. Bibliographies don't always come at the end of a paper- many are independent works of their own, full of recommended sources on any given topic.

For example:

• Microbes and Minie Balls: An Annotated Bibliography of Civil War Medicine (Print Only) , by F. R. Freemon. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993, 253 pp.                          
• Annotated Bibliography on Medical Research in the South Pacific (Harvard login for HathiTrust full text), by Norman-Taylor, William, South Pacific Commission, 1963. 371pp.

Look for specialized subject bibliographies: search, e.g., <"science and state" AND China AND bibliography>   in HOLLIS  and WorldCat (advanced search). Note:The word Bibliography must be searched as a Subject keyword.

If you find an older article or book in a bibliography, you can use the Cited Reference Search in Web of Science to find more recent articles by seeing who has cited it.   If you have a bibliography of primary sources, then the Web of Science can be used to find secondary sources that cite a specified primary source. See Searching the Citation Indexes (Web of Science) .

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Evaluating Sources: Where to Begin

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It’s difficult to evaluate a source if you’re not sure where to begin. Before getting started, it’s important to establish what genre of research you need. Below is a breakdown of how sources are often separated. Once you recognize the differences in sources, it becomes easier to locate exactly what you need and evaluate whether the sources you find seem credible.

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

Most sources fall into two categories: scholarly and popular. Scholarly sources are written by highly-qualified researchers and have a thorough publication process, which usually involves peer-reviewing and an extensive list of references at the end of the text. Scholarly sources often have a specific audience in mind, most likely other experts in the particular field of study. Examples of scholarly sources include books and academic journals written by scholars and experts.

Popular sources, on the other hand, are written by and intended for a general audience. Popular sources are not peer-reviewed, and they do not usually include a reference list. Examples of popular sources range from some books and magazines to websites and blogs.

If you’re unsure whether the source you’re reading is scholarly or popular, ask yourself these questions:

• Who is the intended audience?
• Does the author have credentials?
• Is the text peer-reviewed?
• Is there a reference list or Works Cited page?

If the source you’re examining fits the above criteria, it is most likely a scholarly source.

When searching for sources, different topics might require more scholarly sources or more popular sources. For example, if you were researching the effects of a certain treatment for cancer patients, you would most likely turn to scholarly sources written by experts. However, if you wanted to examine how different news outlets and social media sites portrayed a recent presidential debate, you would instead turn to popular sources.

Understanding the difference between a scholarly and popular source is a crucial step in evaluating credible sources.

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Just as sources can be scholarly or popular, sources are also divided into primary and secondary.

A primary source is a firsthand or eyewitness account of information by an individual close to the topic. Examples of primary sources include autobiographies, personal correspondence (e.g., diary entries, letters), government documents, works of art and literature, statistics and data, and newspaper articles written by reporters close to the source. Today, even some social media posts are considered primary sources, because they are firsthand accounts of information.

A secondary source is a source that is more removed from an event, usually written after the event has happened. Examples of secondary sources include biographies, interpretation of statistics and data, and anything written after an historical event or analyzing something that already happened (e.g., examining a work of art from 100 years ago).

Depending on your research, you may need more primary or secondary sources. For example, if you wanted to trace the history of whale sightings off the coast of Alaska, you would probably need to find some historical documents that provide firsthand information on whale sightings from a few hundred years ago. However, if you wanted to look at how boating has changed whale migration patterns, you would probably rely on some secondary sources that interpret data and statistics.

When evaluating sources, being able to determine whether it’s primary or secondary is helpful as you continue in your research.

Primary and Secondary Sources: What’s the Difference?

Academic writing relies on sources. Sources are the books, websites, articles, movies, speeches, and everything else you use to conduct your research and support your position. Without valid sources, you don’t have a valid piece of academic work. 

Sources fall into two main categories: primary sources and secondary sources. Both provide valuable information for you to use in an essay or another kind of academic writing, but they provide very different kinds of value. Read on to learn about the differences between primary and secondary sources and how your writing relies on both. 

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What is a primary source?

A primary source is a firsthand account of an event that happened, data from a study, or an original work. Here are some examples of primary sources:

• Photographs of historical events
• News articles 
• Novels and short stories
• Autobiographies by historical or famous people 
• Letters and journals
• Published essays and opinion pieces
• Original works of art
• Documentaries
• Excerpts from radio broadcasts and podcasts
• Data from studies and surveys
• Poll results
• Recordings of speeches, music, and other performances
• Government documents about specific policies and laws
• Laws (as in, the actual text of an ordinance or law)

When you work with a primary source, you’re doing your own analysis of the work in question. For example, you might read Frankenstein and then write an analytical essay about its themes. If somebody else then reads your writing and cites it in an essay of their own, they’ve used your work as a secondary source (we’ll share more on that later). 

When you’re writing a lab report, the data you gathered through your experiment is a primary source. Similarly, if you’re doing a write-up of an event you attended, your experiences at the event and any photos or videos you took are primary sources. Primary sources don’t necessarily have to be documents you create yourself, however. They can also be letters written by historical figures, raw data taken from experiments others performed, photos others have taken, and memoirs about specific events. 

What is a secondary source?

Secondary sources are a step removed from primary sources. Essentially, they’re sources about primary sources. Secondary sources include:

• Essays analyzing novels, works of art, and other original creations
• Textbook passages discussing specific concepts, events, and experiments
• Biographies of historical and famous people
• Books about specific events, concepts, movements, and works
• Critical works by academics and professional critics (e.g., a film critic’s review of a movie)
• Political commentary

See the difference between primary and secondary sources? While a primary source provides direct access to a work for you to discuss, analyze, and cite it, a secondary source gives you a look at that work through another writer’s lens. For example, the text of a president’s speech is a primary source, while a political commentator’s column discussing that speech is a secondary source. 

Working with secondary sources can help you understand how the work being discussed has been presented and perceived. It can also provide insight to how the work fits into, and in some cases shaped, its era’s zeitgeist.

How about tertiary sources?

Sources go beyond primary and secondary. You can also use tertiary sources to help with your academic research. A tertiary source is a text that helps you find primary and secondary sources, like an index, directory, or bibliography. 

A tertiary source usually doesn’t provide citable content itself, but gives you a list of sources that can. Wikipedia is probably the most popular tertiary source among students—though you can’t cite Wikipedia in your academic writing, you can consider it an excellent resource for finding sources that you can cite. The reason why you can’t cite Wikipedia is because anybody on the internet can (and does) edit it, so it’s not considered a credible source. You can’t verify the information published on its pages because there’s no way to ensure that the people editing them are qualified authorities on the subjects they’re writing about or are providing objective, factual information.

However, many Wikipedia editors cite credible sources when they make their edits as well as in Wikipedia page references, and these are usually perfectly acceptable sources for you to cite. 

When to use primary vs. secondary sources

Primary and secondary sources fulfill different needs. We touched on these different purposes earlier, but here’s the rest of the explanation: 

When you’re making a clear assertion of fact or presenting a theory or argument you’ve developed, you need to support your position with primary sources. Citing primary sources enables you to back up the statements you make with clear, credible, verifiable data. Basically, if your paper is an original contribution to the existing body of knowledge on the subject you’re covering, the most important sources you work with should be primary sources.

You’ll most likely have assignments where you use both primary and secondary sources. If you’re working on a piece discussing the topic in a broader sense, secondary sources can complement primary sources to help you back up your position. 

For example, in an essay discussing the factors known to decrease motor vehicle accidents, you’d likely refer to data collected by law enforcement agencies and agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (primary source). You might also rely on sources like articles published about car accident stats (primary source) and books about advances in vehicle safety (secondary source). 

Another example could be a paper debunking commonly accepted biographical facts about a historical figure, where you cite excerpts from that figure’s journals (primary source) and contrast that with a text biographers have written about the figure (secondary source). 

How can I tell the difference between primary and secondary sources?

It’s not always easy to tell whether a piece is a primary or secondary source. Sometimes it’s obvious: The actual text of a law you’re citing is clearly a primary source. But what about an interpretive statement of that law? It comes from the agency tasked with enforcing the law and clearly explains the law in plain English, so it’s a primary source to cite in your essay about the effects that law will have, right?

Nope. An interpretive statement is actually a secondary source—unless your writing is focused on the interpretive statement, like an essay analyzing how the law is being presented to voters through the agency’s choice of wording for the interpretive statement. 

The easiest way to tell if a source is a primary or secondary source is to ask, “What is this about?” Consider a literary analysis of The Things They Carried . This analytical essay is about a book, making it a secondary source. The Things They Carried , a book about American soldiers’ experiences in the Vietnam War, can also be a relevant secondary source for a paper on the war because it’s a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories by an author who had served in Vietnam. 

Common questions about primary and secondary sources

Can a work of fiction be a source for academic writing.

Yes. When you’re analyzing a fictional work, that fictional work is a primary source and any derivative works are secondary sources. Generally, fictional works aren’t acceptable sources for scientific or historical papers, but may be used as a secondary source if your writing is discussing how a specific event or concept is depicted in fiction. 

Can I cite a source I’ve written or created?

Yes. In a scientific paper about research you conducted, you refer to the data you collected and the methods you used. In a humanities paper, you might discuss previous research you conducted. In a literary comparison essay, you might discuss a story you wrote. In each of those cases, your written work would be a primary source.

Do primary and secondary sources need to be cited differently?

No. Whether a source is considered primary or secondary for the topic you’ve covered doesn’t impact how you need to format its citation . The type of work it is and the style guide you’re using determine how you need to format your citations.  The three most common style guides for academics are MLA , APA , and Chicago , and each has its own particular rules and requirements for citing just about  any  kind of source, including  photos ,  websites , and  YouTube videos .

>> Read More: Make your Essay Structure Rock-Solid with These Tips

Give your writing extra polish

Once you’ve gathered a body of appropriate, helpful sources, it’s time to get to writing. Don’t worry about perfect grammar or a coherent flow at this point—just write. Once you’ve got a first draft down, Grammarly helps you strengthen your academic writing by catching any grammar mistakes and sentences with a too-casual tone for an academic audience. 

Primary Sources Research Guide

• What Are Primary Sources?
• What Are Secondary Sources?
• Examples of Primary & Secondary Sources
• Where to Look for Primary Sources

Defining Secondary Sources

• Secondary sources interpret, analyze, and discuss the evidence provided by primary sources. Examples of secondary sources include scholarly books and articles.
• Secondary sources are generally a second-hand account or observation at least one step removed from the event, i.e., accounts written after the fact by people not present when an event took place. Such sources are second-hand interpretations of what occurred.
• Secondary sources, however, can be considered to be primary sources depending on the context of their use. For example, Ken Burns' documentary of the Civil War is a secondary source for Civil War researchers (because it consists of Burns' interpretation of primary source materials from the Civil War), but a primary source for those studying documentary filmmaking.
• Secondary sources benefit from the filter of time and differing cultural contexts and perspectives which may assist (or interfere with) scholarly analysis.

Secondary sources can include:

• biographical works;
• commentaries and critical reviews;
• books other than fiction or autobiographies
• journal, newspaper, and magazine articles written well after an event takes place

*Some of the above material is used with permission from the University of Pittsburgh Library's research guide on Primary Sources

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WRI101 Into the Deep Past

• Comparison of Google, Scholar, Articles+, and Web of Science
• Working with Wikipedia
• Finding articles using a database
• Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources
• News sources
• Managing sources
• Academic Integrity at Princeton

Primary v Secondary Sources

The Standard Definition

In historical writing, a primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types of primary sources include: * ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS (excerpts or translations acceptable): Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records * CREATIVE WORKS: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art * RELICS OR ARTIFACTS: Pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings Examples of primary sources include: * Diary of Anne Frank - Experiences of a Jewish family during WWII * The Constitution of Canada - Canadian History * A journal article reporting NEW research or findings * Weavings and pottery - Native American history * Plato's Republic - Women in Ancient Greece What is a secondary source? A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources are one or more steps removed from the event. Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources in them. Some types of seconday sources include: * PUBLICATIONS: Textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias Examples of secondary sources include: * A journal/magazine article which interprets or reviews previous findings * A history textbook * A book about the effects of WWI Search by keyword for Primary Sources in the Main Catalog You can search the Main Catalog to find direct references to primary source material. Perform a keyword search for your topic and add one of the words below: (these are several examples of words that would identify a source as primary) * charters * correspondence * diaries * early works * interviews * manuscripts * oratory * pamphlets * personal narratives * sources * speeches * letters * documents

Another Possible Usage

PRIMARY SOURCE (more frequently PRIMARY TEXT) is sometimes used in a different sense in some types of classes. In a literature class, for example, the primary source might be a novel about which you are writing, and secondary sources those sources also writing about that novel (i.e., literary criticism). However, if you were writing about the literary criticism itself and making an argument about literary theory and the practice of literary criticism, some would use the term PRIMARY SOURCE to refer to the criticism about which you are writing, and secondary sources other sources also making theoretical arguments about the practice of literary criticism. In this second sense of primary source, whatever you are primarily writing ABOUT becomes the primary source, and secondary sources are those sources also writing about that source. Often this will be called the PRIMARY TEXT, but some people do use primary source with this meaning.

Tertiary Sources

Just so you can keep up with all the scholarly jargon about sources, a tertiary source is a source that builds upon secondary sources to provide information. The most common example is an encyclopedia. Consider a particular revolution as an historical event. All the documents from the time become primary sources. All the historians writing later produce secondary sources. Then someone reads those secondary sources and summarizes them in an encyclopedia article, which becomes a tertiary source. If someone then collected a bibliography of encyclopedia articles on the topic, that might be a quarternary source, but at that point the whole thing just becomes silly.

Evaluating Sources

• Critically Analyzing Information Sources Some questions to consider when evaluating sources.
• Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from other Periodicals You need a scholarly journal article. How do you know if you have one?

Evaluating Websites

FROM: Kapoun, Jim. "Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A guide for library instruction." C&RL News (July/August 1998): 522-523.

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Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources: A Quick Guide: Secondary Sources

• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tertiary Sources

What is a Secondary Source?

Secondary sources are books, periodicals, web sites, etc. that people write using the information from primary sources. They are not written by eyewitnesses to events, for instance, but use eyewitness accounts, photographs, diaries and other primary sources to reconstruct events or to support a writer's thesis about the events and their meaning. Many books you find in the Cornell Library Catalog are secondary sources. However, some publishers reformat primary-source documents and publish them in book format; for example, see The American Revolution: A History in Documents .

Reference Help

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