Classify the source in context
Primary sources are original documents or objects connected directly to the time or experience being studied, such as letters, photographs, maps, speeches, artifacts, or oral histories. Secondary sources retell, analyze, or interpret the past after drawing on evidence.
The label depends on the question. A modern textbook is secondary evidence for an ancient empire, but the same textbook could be primary evidence in a study of how that textbook presented history in the year it was published.
Observe before you conclude
Begin by recording what the source actually shows or says. Then ask who created it, when and where it was created, who the intended audience was, and what purpose or point of view may have shaped it.
A primary source is not automatically accurate or complete. It offers one piece of evidence from a particular position. Historians compare it with other primary and secondary sources, look for agreement or contradiction, and keep unanswered questions visible.
Remember these ideas
Key ideas
- Primary sources are directly connected to the time or experience under study.
- Secondary sources interpret or explain evidence, often with distance from the event.
- A source’s category can change when the research question changes.
- Creator, context, audience, purpose, and limits all shape how evidence should be used.
Make the reasoning visible
Analyze a diary entry
- 1
Question: How did a student experience school closures during the 1918 influenza pandemic?
- 2
A diary entry written by that student in 1918 is a primary source for the question because it records a direct perspective from that time.
- 3
Observe the exact details first, then identify the writer, date, intended audience, and likely purpose.
- 4
Use the entry to support a claim about this student’s experience—not every student’s experience—and compare it with other evidence.
Try the next step
Classify and analyze it
A historian studies how newspapers tried to influence public support for a war. Is an editorial printed during that war a primary or secondary source for this question? Also identify its creator and audience, its likely purpose, and one limitation.
What different question might make the same editorial useful in a different way?