Finding Relevant Sources

The more you know about the range of sources available to you, the more efficient and productive your search will be.

Primary Sources

• Materials written or created by people who took part in events or observed them
• Examples : personal documents such as letters, diaries, autobiographies, speeches, e-mails, and Weblogs ; first-person newspaper and magazine articles ; public documents such as birth certificates, deeds, and wills

 Advantages : Primary sources supply firsthand information ; usually provide insight into the attitudes and beliefs of the authors ; can be very detailed and specific

 Disadvantages : subjectivity and lack of perspective ; may be biased ; chance of inaccuracy

 Secondary Source

• Records created after events by people who were not directly involved
• Examples : encyclopedias, textbooks, biographies, second-person newspaper and magazine articles, historical nonfiction books, and most documentaries

 Advantages : helpful for getting an overview of a topic ; sometimes include excerpts from a variety of primary sources ; often have a broad perspective and consider many viewpoints

 Disadvantages : only as reliable as the sources on which they are based ; may be biased ; can lack the interest provided by an individual voice

Primary sources can be a reality check by balancing the more distant perspective of a secondary source, offering a sense of what it was like to witness or participate in an event. Primary sources need not be written texts ; for example, paintings, maps, and artifacts can be primary sources.

Secondary Sources may not be as objective as they first seem. For example, "both a scientist who believes in global warming and one who does not might present impressive statistics, but each scientists probably would choose and emphasize the statistics differently."