"Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event or topic under consideration, either as participants or as witnesses."
Quoted from:A Pocket Guide to Writing History, 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007
Examples of primary sources, both print and online, include:
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Primary Sources: Materials which have not been interpreted by another person. Original documents or works of art created at or near the time an event occurred. Primary sources provide first hand accounts of experiences or events. Information is generally presented in its original form, whether it be a work of literature or art, or an account of an event or experience, or original documents or research products such as interviews, speeches, questionnaires, letters, diaries, manuscripts, memoirs, etc. Includes books, periodicals, and web sites.
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Secondary Sources: Secondary sources provide second hand accounts of events. These sources include materials that have been reported, analyzed, or interpreted by people who do not have firsthand knowledge of an event and may be found in books or periodicals, or on web sites.
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Below is a sampling of recently published primary source books from Reynolds Libraries collections.
Daily Life in Ancient Egyptian Personal Correspondence
The Greek Histories: The Sweeping History of Ancient Greece as Told by Its First Chroniclers: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch
Italy Before Rome: A Sourcebook
Love Sex and Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Sourcebook
Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices From History
To search for primary sources in Reynolds Libraries catalog, try subject terms such as:
Subject term examples:
Covers both U.S. & world history. Provides background information on specific events throughout history; pro/con articles that cover all sides of specific events/issues in history; historical timelines and primary sources. (Full text)
Comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database containing journal, magazine and newspaper articles. (Full text)
To search for primary sources in the EBSCOhost databases including: Academic Search Complete and History Reference Center, type your search terms than select Primary Source Document from the Publication Type menu:
**For getting started tips on how to search these databases for primary sources, check out our Finding Primary Sources in Library Catalog & Databases guide**