Primary source: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:10, 19 June 2025

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In [[journalism]], a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document written by such a person.<ref>{{cite web |last=Peace |first=Kristin |title=Journalism: Primary Sources |url=http://infoguides.pepperdine.edu/c.php?g=287355&p=1915752 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180118181232/https://infoguides.pepperdine.edu/c.php?g=287355&p=1915752 |archive-date=Jan 18, 2018 |access-date=17 January 2018 |publisher=Pepperdine University}}</ref>

Primary sources are distinguished from ''[[secondary source]]s'', which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources. Generally, accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight are secondary.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20130726061349/http://www.lib.umd.edu/ues/guides/primary-sources Primary, secondary and tertiary sources]". University Libraries, University of Maryland.</ref> A secondary source may also be a primary source depending on how it is used.<ref>"[http://www.ithacalibrary.com/sp/subjects/primary Primary and secondary sources] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160301225514/http://www.ithacalibrary.com/sp/subjects/primary |date=1 March 2016 }}". Ithaca College Library.</ref> For example, a [[memoir]] would be considered a primary source in research concerning its author or about their friends characterized within it, but the same memoir would be a secondary source if it were used to examine the culture in which its author lived. "Primary" and "secondary" should be understood as relative terms, with sources categorized according to specific historical contexts and what is being studied.<ref name="Handlin" />{{rp|118–246}}<ref name="Kragh">{{Cite book |last=Kragh |first=Helge |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OX7d7u_2rF4C&pg=PA121 |title=An Introduction to the Historiography of Science |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1989 |isbn=0-521-38921-6 |page=121 |quote=[T]he distinction is not a sharp one. Since a source is only a source in a specific historical context, the same source object can be both a primary or secondary source according to what it is used for.}}</ref>

==Classifying sources==