Primary Source

Primary Source

Primary sources are original materials. Information for which the writer has no personal knowledge is not primary, although it may be used by historians in the absence of a primary source. In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called original source or evidence) is an artifact, a document, a recording, or other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions are used in library science, and other areas of scholarship. In journalism, a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person.

Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources, though the distinction is not a sharp one. Generally, accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight primary are secondary. A secondary source may also be a primary source depending on how it is used. "Primary" and "secondary" are relative terms, with sources judged primary or secondary according to specific historical contexts and what is being studied.

Read more about Primary Source:  Finding Primary Sources, Using Primary Sources, Strengths and Weaknesses of Primary Sources, Classifying Sources, Forgeries

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    “A fact is a proposition of which the verification by an appeal to the primary sources of our knowledge or to experience is direct and simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true, has all the characteristics of a fact except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means.”
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    “The traditional American husband and father had the responsibilities—and the privileges—of playing the role of primary provider. Sharing that role is not easy. To yield exclusive access to the role is to surrender some of the potential for fulfilling the hero fantasy—a fantasy that appeals to us all. The loss is far from trivial.”
    —Faye J. Crosby (20th century)

    “The source of our actions resides in an unconscious propensity to regard ourselves as the center, the cause, and the conclusion of time. Our reflexes and our pride transform into a planet the parcel of flesh and consciousness we are.”
    —E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)