Primary source: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:36, 6 April 2025

Revision as of 21:37, 6 April 2025

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[[File:donfelipe.jpg|thumb|360px|right|From a letter of Philip II, King of Spain, 16th century]]

In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine their independence and reliability.<ref name=Kragh/> In contexts such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources and that "if none are available, it is only with great caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources."<ref name=Cipolla>{{Cite book|last=Cipolla|first=Carlo M.|title=Between Two Cultures:An Introduction to Economic History|page=27|publisher=W. W. Norton & Co.|year=1992|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GIqRTlepwmoC&q=cipolla|isbn=978-0-393-30816-7}}</ref> Sreedharan believes that primary sources have the most direct connection to the past and that they "speak for themselves" in ways that cannot be captured through the filter of secondary sources.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sreedharan|first=E.|title=A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000|year=2004|publisher=Orient Longman|isbn=81-250-2657-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AIGq85RVvdoC&q=historiography+%22primary+source%22+%22secondary+source%22&pg=PA302|page=302|quote=[I]t is through the primary sources that the past indisputably imposes its reality on the historian. That this imposition is basic in any understanding of the past is clear from the rules that documents should not be altered, or that any material ( wait a minute cause i love aaditiya) damaging to a historian's argument or purpose should not be left out or suppressed. These rules mean that the sources or texts of the past have integrity and that they do indeed 'speak for themselves', and that they are necessary constraints through which past reality imposes itself on the historian.}}</ref>

===Other fields===