PRIMARY SOURCES - A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art.

Primary
sources include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing,
audio and video recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via email, blogs,
listservs, and newsgroups are also primary sources. In the natural and social sciences, primary sources are often empirical studies—
research where an experiment was performed or a direct observation was made. The results of empirical studies are typically found in
scholarly articles or papers delivered at conferences.

SECONDARY SOURCES - Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyze, evaluate, summarize, and process
primary sources. Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles
found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else's original research.

Serials
Journals, magazines, and newspapers are serial publications that are published on an ongoing basis.

Many scholarly journals in the sciences and social sciences include primary source articles where the authors report on research they
have undertaken. Consequently, these papers may use the first person ("We observed…"). These articles usually follow a standard
format with sections like "Methods," "Results," and "Conclusion."

In the humanities, age is an important factor in determining whether an article is a primary or secondary source. A recently-published
journal or newspaper article on the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case would be read as a secondary source, because the
author is interpreting an historical event. An article on the case that was published in 1955 could be read as a primary source that
reveals how writers were interpreting the decision immediately after it was handed down.

Serials may also include book reviews, editorials, and review articles. Review articles summarize research on a particular topic, but
they do not present any new findings; therefore, they are considered secondary sources. Their bibliographies, however, can be used to
identify primary sources.

Books
Most books are secondary sources, where authors reference primary source materials and add their own analysis. "Lincoln at
Gettysburg: the Words that Remade America" by Gary Wills is about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. If you are researching
Abraham Lincoln, this book would be a secondary source because Wills is offering his views about Lincoln and the Gettysburg
Address.

Books can also function as primary sources. For example, Abraham Lincoln's letters, speeches, or autobiography would be primary
sources. To locate primary sources in the library catalog, do a keyword search and include "sources" in your search. The search results
for "Abraham Lincoln" and "Sources" would include include "The Civil War: the First Year Told By Those Who Lived It", a book that
includes letters written by Abraham Lincoln.

Visual and Audio Materials

Visual materials such as maps, photographs, prints, graphic arts, and original art forms can provide insights into how people viewed
and/or were viewed the world in which they existed.

Films, videos, TV programs, and digital recordings can be primary sources. Documentaries, feature films, and TV news broadcasts can
provide insights into the fantasies, biases, political attitudes, and material culture of the times in which they were created. Radio
broadcast recordings, oral histories, and the recorded music of a particular era can also serve as primary source material.

Archival Material
Manuscripts and archives are primary sources, including business and personal correspondence, diaries and journals, legal and
financial documents, photographs, maps, architectural drawings, objects, oral histories, computer tapes, and video and audio
cassettes. Some archival materials are published and available in print or online.

Government Documents
Government documents provide evidence of activities, functions, and policies at all government levels. For research that relates to the
workings of government, government documents are primary sources.

These documents include hearings and debates of legislative bodies; the official text of laws, regulations and treaties; records of
government expenditures and finances; and statistical compilations of economic, demographic, and scientific data.
Tertiary Sources
Tertiary sources contain information that has been compiled from primary and secondary sources. Tertiary sources include almanacs,
chronologies, dictionaries and encyclopedias, directories, guidebooks, indexes, abstracts, manuals, and textbooks.

Primary Sources
Primary resources contain first-hand information, meaning that you are reading the author’s own account on a specific topic or event
that s/he participated in. Examples of primary resources include scholarly research articles, books, and diaries. Primary sources such as
research articles often do not explain terminology and theoretical principles in detail. Thus, readers of primary scholarly research
should have foundational knowledge of the subject area. Use primary resources to obtain a first-hand account to an actual event and
identify original research done in a field. For many of your papers, use of primary resources will be a requirement.

Examples of a primary source are:

 Original documents such as diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, records, eyewitness accounts, autobiographies
 Empirical scholarly works such as research articles, clinical reports, case studies, dissertations
 Creative works such as poetry, music, video, photography

How to locate primary research in NCU Library:

1. From the Library's homepage, begin your search in Roadrunner Search or select a subject-specific database from the A-Z
Databases.
2. Use the Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed Journal limiter to narrow your search to journal articles.
3. Once you have a set of search results, remember to look for articles where the author has conducted original research. A
primary research article will include a literature review, methodology, population or set sample, test or measurement,
discussion of findings and usually future research directions.

Secondary Sources
Secondary sources describe, summarize, or discuss information or details originally presented in another source; meaning the author,
in most cases, did not participate in the event. This type of source is written for a broad audience and will include definitions of
discipline specific terms, history relating to the topic, significant theories and principles, and summaries of major studies/events as
related to the topic. Use secondary sources to obtain an overview of a topic and/or identify primary resources. Refrain from including
such resources in an annotated bibliography for doctoral level work unless there is a good reason.

Examples of a secondary source are:

 Publications such as textbooks, magazine articles, book reviews, commentaries, encyclopedias, almanacs

Locate secondary resources in NCU Library within the following databases:

 Annual Reviews (scholarly article reviews)

 Credo Reference (encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks & more)
 Ebook Central (ebooks)
 ProQuest (book reviews, bibliographies, literature reviews & more )
 SAGE Reference Methods, SAGE Knowledge & SAGE Navigator (handbooks, encyclopedias, major works, debates & more)
 Most other Library databases include secondary sources.

Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Source Secondary Source

History Slave diary Book about the Underground Railroad

Literature Poem Treatise on a particular genre of poetry

Political Science Treaty Essay on Native American land rights

Theater Videotape of a performance Biography of a playwright