Primary sources are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented.
Often these sources are created at the time when the events or conditions are occurring, but primary sources can also include autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories recorded later.
Primary sources can include:
Newspaper articles
Photographs
Diary entries
Letters
Speeches
Pamphlets
Court files
Secondary sources are different from primary sources. They are not first-hand accounts of events written by eyewitnesses, or photographs of actual events. Secondary sources use a variety of other sources to describe, analyse, interpret, and provide commentary. Examples are books, journal articles, reports and websites.
Tertiary sources summarise, condense and compile other sources.
They are excellent source-types to use in the study of history for contextual information, historiographical approaches and key theorists.
Examples are dictionaries, handbooks, encyclopedias and bibliographies.
