What are primary & secondary sources?
Primary sources: documents that have been written at the time an investigation is being undertaken.
I.e. a first-hand account of an event or the actual document.
For example:
- original research including datasets, or survey data
- an interview
- newspaper article
- speeches, diaries or letters
- Artworks, photographs, music, poems, government records, video, audio that capture events
Secondary sources: are a description, analysis or evaluation of primary sources
For example:
- Document based on data gathered from a primary source
- Document based on someone else’s interview not their own interview
- Document based on another secondary source
- Document critiquing a piece of art
- Document which is a review of a play
- Document about a government record
