MEANING AND RELEVANCE OF HISTORY
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES
HISTORICAL METHOD
HISTORY
Is a continuing and unending dialogue between the present and the past
with the historian serving as guide and interpreter.
– Edward Hallet Carr
Historian’s most important role is the synthetic one of giving meaning to the facts
and events of the past. “the historian without his facts is rootless and
futile; the facts without historian are dead and meaningless.”
PRIMARY SOURCES
AND
SECONDARY SOURCES
PRIMARY SOURCES
is anything that gives you direct evidence
about the people, events, or phenomena that you are
researching. Primary sources will usually be the main
objects of your analysis.
SECONDARY SOURCES
is anything that describes, interprets,
evaluates, or analyzes information from primary sources.
Common examples include:
QUESTION: Sir can a secondary source become a primary source?
A secondary source can become a primary source depending on your research question.
If the person, context, or technique that produced the source is the main focus of your research, it becomes a
primary source.
Question: Sir, I'm a little confused; a newspaper is a primary source, so why is it included
in secondary sources also?
If your aim is to analyze the government’s economic policy, a newspaper article about a new policy is
a secondary source.
But if your aim is to analyze media coverage of economic issues, the newspaper article is a primary source.
How to tell if a source is primary or secondary?
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Does this source come from someone directly involved in the events I’m studying (primary) or from another
researcher (secondary)?
Am I interested in analyzing the source itself (primary) or only using it for background information (secondary)?
Does the source provide original information (primary) or does it comment upon information from other
sources (secondary)?