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UCOR 1440: Women's Rights as Human Rights

This guide supports UCOR 1440

Primary versus secondary

Primary sources

Sometimes faculty recommend or require the use of primary sources. These are original documents related to an event or topic, including diaries and personal eyewitness accounts, interviews, speeches, creative and artistic works, and first-hand reports of events such as newspaper articles.  

Example of a primary source: 

Selected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and edited by Betty T. Bennett.
The correspondence of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley written between 1814-1850.

Secondary sources

Secondary sources analyze and comment on primary sources. These may include books or articles written by scholars who interpret past events or synthesize previous research.

Example of a secondary source: 

The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein, by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler.
The authors' retelling and examination of the events that led Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to write Frankenstein. 

Both primary and secondary sources can be valuable in the sense that original data can be both examined and interpreted later by scholars and researchers.

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original, uninterpreted information (Original = Primary = First)
Unedited, firsthand access to words, images, or objects created by persons directly involved in an activity or event or speaking directly for a group. This is information before it has been analyzed, interpreted, commented upon, spun, or repackaged. Depending upon the context, these may include treaties, research reports, legal cases, parliamentary debates, ambassador's reports, statutes, administrative regulations, speeches, manuscripts, diaries, personal letters, diplomatic records, etc.

 

Secondary

Secondary sources interpret, analyze, or summarize (Not original = Secondary = Not first)
Commentary upon, or analysis of, events, ideas, or primary sources. Because they are often written significantly after events by parties not directly involved but who have special expertise, they may provide historical context or critical perspectives. Examples are scholarly books, journals, magazines, criticism, interpretations, and so forth.

 

Checklist

Primary sources:
Secondary sources:
  • Created at the time of an event, or very soon after
  • Created after event; sometimes a long time after something happened
  • Created by someone who saw or heard an event themselves
  • Often uses primary sources as examples. Written by someone not directly involved with event. Explains or interprets primary sources
  • Information before it has been analyzed, interpreted, commented upon, spun or repackaged
  • Expresses an opinion or an argument about a past event
  • Often uses first-person voice (I saw ... I believed)
  • Uses third-person voice (He saw ... She escaped). Has second-hand, indirect perspective
  •  Testifies, emotes, expresses
  •  Reports upon, analyzes

 

 

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Subjects: History