Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:09, 18 September 2011

Revision as of 20:52, 21 September 2011

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===All sources are primary for something===

Every source is the primary source for something, whether it be the name of the author, its title, its date of publication, and so forth. For example, no matter what kind of book it is, the [[copyright page]] inside the front of a book is a primary source for the date of the book's publication. Even if the book would normally be considered a secondary source, if the statement that you are using this source to support is the date of its own publication, then you are using that book as a primary source.

More importantly, many high-quality sources contain both primary and secondary material. A textbook might include commentary on the proclamation (which is secondary material) as well as the full text of the proclamation (which is primary material). A peer-reviewed journal article may begin by summarizing previously published work to place the new work in context (which is secondary material) before proceeding into a description of a novel idea (which is primary material). An author might write a book about an event that is mostly a synthesis of primary-source news stories (which is secondary material), but he might add occasional information about personal experiences or new material from recent interviews (which is primary material). The book about love letters might analyze the letters (which is secondary material) and provide a transcription of the letters in an appendix (which is primary material). The work based on previously published sources is [[#Not a matter of counting the number of links in the chain|probably]] a secondary source; the new information is a primary source.

How you use the source affects the classification of the source.

=="Secondary" is not another way to spell "good"==