• What are primary sources?
  • See this definition from the Library of Congress here: “Primary sources” are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience".
  • You will most often work with primary sources that have been digitized by a library, museum, archive or even a community-based project unless you go visit a collection in a physical space. Some primary sources are digital by nature like social media.
  • Examples:
    • Original Documents: Diaries, speeches, letters, meeting minutes, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official gov't records
    • Creative Works: Poetry, dramatic plays, novels, music, art, films produced during key historical eras (but not creative works simply about key historical eras)
    • Relics or Artifacts: Jewelry, pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings, tools made during key historical eras (but not relics or artifacts simply made about key historical eras)
• Can a secondary source be a primary source also?
  • Yes, but context is key!
  • Generally things like books or news articles that are written about a topic or provide a reflection about an event after the fact would be considered secondary sources. They can also be considered primary sources though.
  • For example, if you are examining colonialism in Nigeria through newspaper articles and are investigating public attitudes during the colonial era, then those news articles would be considered primary sources.
• What if I found a primary source on a website, but it doesn't give much information about the source? Should I still use it?
  • Not all primary sources you find will have a lot of context or story describing what they are unfortunately. Choose whether to use materials that lack description or context based on how integral it is to the lesson.
  • While you can find primary sources through things like Google searches, focus on vetted databases and collections found on this guide.
• Do I need to cite these sources?
  • Yes! Even if you don't have to ask for permission from copyright holders, you still need to credit the creators and create a list of references for the project. It is also very useful to you as the researcher, so you know where all of these resources were found.
  • Refer to the UR Citing Sources Guide for the specifics of citing primary sources in your preferred style.

• What are secondary sources?
  • Let's use the Library of Congress definition once again: "Secondary sources are accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place."
  • Examples:
    • Scholarly articles (in history research), book reviews, critical analyses of topics, second-person accounts, historical studies of time periods, biographies
• What is a scholarly article? How is it considered a secondary source?
  • Scholarly articles (also sometimes called "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" articles) are works that have undergone a strict evaluation process for its content and conclusions, usually reviewed by other subject experts. Scholarly writing or academic scholarship tends to come from people (like your professors) producing knowledge and engaging in conversation with fellow scholars in their field. This work may be published in academic journals, as a book, a chapter in an edited volume, or an online publication.
  • In history research, scholarly articles are typically considered secondary sources because they involve author(s) making arguments about, and drawing conclusions from, collections of primary sources, thus they are talking about historical time periods instead of producing content during them. 
    • ​​​​​​​In other disciplines (ex. psychology, education), there are some scholarly articles considered "primary sources" because they involve researchers conducting original research. However that is not usually the case in historical research.
• How do I know which articles I find are scholarly?
  • ​​​​​​​While it takes time to familiarize yourself with content, you can learn to recognize scholarly sources with the following criteria:
    • The author most likely will list their credentials such as their highest degree, university affiliation, and department.
    • The writer uses highly specialized language, specific to a discipline or area of study.
    • The work includes extensive citations, bibliographies, or footnotes, showing the author is aware of a body of scholarship relevant to the field.
    • The content has been published by an academic institution or university press, the journal is specific to a field of study or discipline.
    • The author's work is most likely "peer-reviewed" or has gone through a rigorous editorial process by fellow experts in the field, which can take a long time. If you can't tell if something is peer-reviewed, look up the journal or press website and see if you can find something out about the editorial process. Otherwise, you can always use a "peer review" filter in your databases search!
• So any article that's considered "scholarly" should be a great resource to use, right?
  • ​​​​​​​Wrong!
  • Due to a number of factors, there are plenty of scholarly articles still in circulation that should not be used in your research, including:
    • The content is outdated
    • Thinking around an article's conclusions/theories has evolved
    • The article was "retracted" (or withdrawn from publication)
    • The article is published by non-history scholars/journals
  • While it does take time to learn how to identify scholarly articles, and quality scholarly articles at that, always keep in mind things like publication dates, background of authors/journals, and the subject expertise of the authors/journals.
• Where should I go to find quality secondary/scholarly articles?
  • ​​​​​​​Use the resources found on this guide under the "Secondary (Scholarly) Sources" page for great starting points!

On the World Wide Web, scholarly researchers face the challenge of navigating and extracting useable information from over 100 million indexed sites and over 46 billion pages. Here are some signs of a good scholarly web resource:

The basic rules for evaluating a source for quality are the same as the "5 W's" of journalism:

Who, What, When, Where, and Why.

Who produced the doucment, image, video, sound file, etc. and what do you know about them, their credentials, and their motives?

What is the factual or emotional content of the source and does it reflect reality?

When was it produced and does that time frame alter its potential usefulnes?

Where was it published and does that publisher evaluate sources befor publishing them?  Does the place of publication reflect on the competence or impartiality of the source?  Is this a re-publication and, if so, where was it originally published?

Why was the item produced and published?  To educate?  To influence?  To sell something?  To promote the creator?