Teachtopia teaches SOCIAL STUDIES
What are primary sources
What is considered a primary source?
In order to understand a primary sources, it often makes sense to first think about what a secondary source is. An encyclopedia article about Cesar Chavez based upon photos, journals, and newspaper articles from a time period is a secondary source. The source material for the article (the photos, journals, and newspaper articles) are the primary sources.
What are example of primary sources?
- *books, newspapers and magazine articles (could be the text only does not have to be original content or even a photocopy)
- *photos, audio, video, movies
- *journals, invitations, letters, scrapbooks, diaries
- *speeches (transcripts and original audio/video)
- *government publications and records
- *oral histories (recorded, first hand, and transcribed)
- *documents and records of organizations
- *biographies and autobiographies
- *printed ephemera (material from a time period) example: Menus, Maps
- *artifacts, example: clothing, costumes, furniture (could be reproductions)
- *research data, example: census data, public opinion polls