A source is simply something that provides you with information to fill a need. That need may be as simple as answering a basic question or it may be as complex as writing a book. With the right information need, such as finding a good place to eat, even a Yelp review can be a source. For most of your research assignments, however, you needs will be more than answering a basic question--though not as involved as writing a book. You may be told that you need a certain number of sources and what types of sources to use. How do you go about finding the right source for the right need? This tab is all about that, and this advice can be used for multiple classes and even for beyond your college life!
You’ll be asked to use primary sources throughout this course, which might leave you wondering: What IS a primary source?
To understand, let’s do a little role-play.
Imagine you are living in Salem, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1692. At first, it seems like an ordinary day—you’re tending to chores, gossiping with neighbors, maybe wondering how long until the next sermon. But whispers are spreading: someone in town has been accused of witchcraft.
By afternoon, the rumors grow. You join the anxious crowd at the meetinghouse, where a young girl shrieks and points at your neighbor, claiming she saw her “consorting with the Devil.” The air feels heavy with fear. Some shout “guilty!” while others hang back, unsure. You see the accused dragged forward, pleading her innocence.
That night, by candlelight, you write in your diary:
Today Goody Osborn was accused of witchcraft. The girls cried out that they saw her spirit. Some believe them. I fear for her—she denied it all, but the magistrates looked stern. People whisper that the Devil walks in Salem. I do not know what to believe, only that I am frightened.
Congratulations—you’ve just created a primary source.
Primary sources are first-hand evidence of an event or topic. They can be almost anything—letters, diaries, government documents, newspaper articles written at the time, audio or video recordings, or even physical objects like pottery, a 1950s food can, or a dinosaur fossil. What matters is context: a Corythosaurus skull is a primary source for paleontologists but useless for studying World War I.
In contrast, secondary sources are created later, when someone analyzes and interprets primary sources. A historian, decades later, might study letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts of the Molasses Flood and then write a book—that book is a secondary source.
Note that primary and secondary sources are not static; what is a secondary source for one need may be a primary source for another. Check out this video for a quick explanation.
Because many primary sources were created “in the moment,” older ones (pre-1930s) are often freely available online, while newer ones may be digitized if tied to major events. On this guide, you’ll find lists of primary source collections under each topic tab—click your topic, look for Primary Sources, and start exploring!
Peer-reviewed articles are written by professionals in a field of study for other professionals in the same field (peers). To get published, the article has to be submitted to a panel of these professionals for review. The author or authors of the article will submit their work to a journal, and the editor of the journal will remove their name before submitting it for review. (This theoretically keeps the review panel from knowing who submitted the article, so they shouldn't be able to either play favorites or hold a grudge and deny publishing.) If the review panel of peers like what they see, they will let the editor of the journal know they approve (though they often suggest some changes or additions) and, once any recommended changes are made, the editor can publish. If they out-and-out reject the article, then the editor will inform the author that the article is not suitable for publication. This is a long-standing tradition in professional publishing and scholarly communication, and while most of the time the research that gets published is good, sometimes poor research gets through despite the safeguards. Reading through the Methods section may help you determine if anything looks odd. If you notice a red flag in the Methods section of a peer-review, it doesn't necessarily mean the whole article is invalid, but the more questions you have about an article, particularly how the information was obtained, calculated, and interpreted, the more likely it is to be flawed.
There are 2 basic types of peer-reviewed articles: empirical ones and literature reviews (sometimes just reviews or essays). Empirical articles are based on observations made by the author(s)--these can be case studies, scientific experiments, polls and surveys, and other studies where the observations are measured by the author(s). Unlike literature reviews, an empirical peer-review article CAN be a primary source IF the research is the first of its kind (testing a new drug, for instance), though this is usually more common in the sciences and technology fields than in humanities fields like history. Literature reviews are when the author(s) compile a collection of previously-published articles on a topic and look for patterns and insights. Reviews are always collected works and may be brief or very in-depth. Generally, if you're looking for cutting-edge scientific information, you want an empirical article, while if you're looking for an overview or an historical look at something, a literature review is perfectly fine--though because they are a compiling of previously published works, they are never considered primary sources.
Because the review process takes time, it can take a while for these types of articles to be published. If you need information about current events, you're better off with newspaper or news magazine articles, but when you need a scholarly source that's been published within a year or two of an event, a peer-reviewed article should be a good option.
Newspapers and magazines have some major similarities and some major differences. The biggest similarities is with the authors--while peer-reviewed articles are written by experts in their field, newspaper and magazine articles are written by professional writers and journalists, who often don't have a big background (if any) in the topics they write about. They do the research, often interviewing experts, and write up their findings for publication. These articles aren't reviewed in the same way; they are looked at by editors to catch spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, and to make sure the article doesn't need trimmed to fit the available space, but unless the publisher of the newspaper or magazine have professional fact-checkers go over the articles, the contents aren't reviewed for mistakes. Both often have a much shorter turn-around time for publication--with monthly magazines, it may take a few weeks, but newspapers have a particularly fast turn-around time, since they cover current events. Some articles are written and published within hours of an event!
The biggest differences between newspaper and magazine articles is often length, depth, and frequency of publication. Magazine articles tend to be longer and more in-depth than the short articles found in newspapers, which are often, at their longest, maybe a half-page to a page long (and frequently these are split up to allow for multiple articles to start on the front page). Magazine articles can be a page for a quick article, but most have a much longer article, if not several, that spans several pages,which are mentioned on the cover (thus the "cover story"). Because a magazine article is longer, it also tends to be more in-depth, with more background information, details, and sometimes speculations about what the event or topic means in a big-picture sense. Newspapers, due to the limited space, must keep to strict facts and in-the-moment information, with little embellishments. However, because they are released daily, newspapers are the best sources to turn to for current events; they are also considered primary sources, as they report about the events and topics that are newsworthy at the moment. Magazines publish at best weekly, and most are every other week or monthly, so there will be more of a lag with current event coverage.
Neither magazine or newspaper articles are considered scholarly, but depending on the article and the information need, both can be primary sources if they are covering topic-contemporary information (an article about the Dust Bowl from 1932, for instance). Newspapers in particular make great primary sources, as they cover the event while it's unfolding, and a series of newspaper articles read in order can give a good idea of how events happened chronologically.
Out of all the source formats listed here, books are by far the most varied. Rather than explain what a book is, let's look at the different types of books and when to use them.
Fiction v. Nonfiction: Fictional books are stories; these are novels, children's chapter and easy read books, collections of short stories, etc. and are read for entertainment. Nonfiction works are factual and are read as much to inform as to entertain, though many popular nonfiction books may do both.
Scholarly books are written by professionals in the field, and may be written as textbooks or as scholarly reference works designed to be used in research. These can include specialty reference books like drug guides or titles like CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, or they can be more standard in format and read like a typical book, but with a scholarly slant. These titles, like Habitats and Ecological Communities in Indiana: Presettlement to Present, are usually about a very specific topic and are published by a professional or educational instutition (American Psychological Association, Indiana University, etc.). These books are great when you want in-depth information from a scholarly source.
Popular books are those fiction and nonfiction books that are released by mainstream publishers for enjoyment by a wide audience. These works are often written as much to entertain as to inform the general population and, while nonfiction books can be used as sources if the information need doesn't require scholarly works, that isn't their main purpose--they are intended for people to read simply because they want to know more about a topic. While these books can be written by experts (A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, for instance), many are written by professional writers. Popular books are released by publishers not tied to professional or educational institutions. For research purposes, these can be great for explaining complex concepts in simple terms, but some assignments may require only scholarly sources, which would exclude these.
Books as Primary Sources: Yes, books can be primary sources, if you know what you're looking at and what your information need is. The most common primary source books are autobiographical--books written about a person, by that person. If you're writing a paper about Benjamin Franklin and you need a primary source, you could turn to the book The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson is NOT a primary source because it is a biography--written by someone other than who the book is about--rather than an autobiography. Memoirs, diaries, and autobiographies all fall into the primary source category because they're all written about the author, by the author.
Another potential primary source is collections of letters. Similar to the above, letters traded back and forth between people can provide first-hand insight into the lives and events happening to the people who are writing. Many online collections will have individual letters available, but there are also books that have been published that are nothing but compilations of back-and-forth correspondence, often focusing on one individual.
Some books may be focused on an event rather than a person; while the text may mostly be contemporary, the book may include some primary sources, often as photographs. Some may include scans of newspaper articles, letters, documents, and other primary source materials. Be very careful if using these types of books to make sure that the parts you're using are primary sources.
Primary sources can be just about anything--the key is that they are first-hand evidence of an event, topic, or time period. Here are some possible primary sources you may find in online collections: