Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art. Social media posts from services like Instagram and Twitter can also be primary sources. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research.
(From: Primary Sources on the Web. Site includes strategies for reading and evaluating primary sources).
Secondary sources interpret, analyze or summarize. They provide 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 of secondary sources include books, scholarly articles, and (some) news articles.
Tertiary sources consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources. At our library, we often refer to these sources as "background sources." We generally advise students to consult these sources early in their research process, to get a sense of the landscape of information available on their topic. It may not always be appropriate to cite these sources for a paper or assignment. Many examples of Tertiary sources are available on our Reference Tools page. Some examples of tertiary sources include:
Primary vs. Secondary Sources - Guide produced by the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) Library. Includes lots of useful examples of types of primary and secondary sources.
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Land Acknowledgment: The University of Washington Bothell & Cascadia College Campus Library occupies Land that has been inhabited by Indigenous Peoples since time immemorial. Specifically, this campus is located on Sammamish Land from which settler colonists forcibly removed Coast Salish Peoples to reservations in the mid-19th century. Today, descendants of the Sammamish are members of several Coast Salish communities.