LibGuides: ICS Gateway Course: Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

Image courtesy Cardinal Stritch University Library

Primary sources are contemporary, first-hand, (un)published accounts of an event. Published = printed, filmed, uploaded, or digitized (non-archival) materials.

How to Find Primary Sources (Duke University Libraries)
How to Read a Primary Sources (Bowdoin College) wesbite includes a helpful section (2b) with tips for what kinds of questions to ask when evaluating a primary source.

Archival Collections

Newspapers

International newspapers--Links to and descriptions of (nearly) all of the Duke Library's newspapers - original, electronic & microform, as well as links to collections available to members of the Duke community, but located outside of Duke itself.

Primary Source Publications

Publications of original documents, often with retrospective scholarly analysis and bibliographies.

Letters and correspondence
Diaries and personal narratives
Interviews
Government documents (e.g. US State Dept. reports on Countries and Human Rights)
Non-governmental Organizations -- eg. World Social Forum (WSF)
Inter-governmental Organizations-- eg. World Trade Organization (WTO); United Nations (UN Human Development Reports)
Laws & Legislation: International Law and Foreign & Comparative Law
Belles lettres (eg. "critical editions" of fiction and poetry)

Audiovisual Materials

Still Images: embedded collections, web portals; and commercial collections (charge for use, but browsing is free)
Moving Images (Video/Films)
Sound-recordings – such as oral histories, political speeches = eg. Search by format ("Audio") for keyword (eg. "human rights")

Numerical & Geospatial Data

Data & Digital Maps
Non-spatial data sets – indices do not take into account any spatial relationships of the geographical entities (i.e., distances apart, clustering within, spatial concentrations, etc.).
Writing with Statistics (Purdue): Numbers don't speak for themselves. Here's advice on how to use statistics effectively.

Primary Source Databases

Primary Sources Research databases

Secondary Sources

Image courtesy Cardinal Stritch University Library

Secondary sources are retrospective analyses based on the author’s own reading of existing primary sources. Scholarly work uses recent, peer-reviewed academic sources, such as journal (not magazine) articles, books, and book chapters.

Books

Reference books (subject-specific encyclopedias and dictionaries give you a helpful overview of your topic, provide authoritative definitions of terms, theoretical concepts and historical events, and a bibliography.
Published research: scientific studies and monographs, containing scholarly analysis and apparatus (i.e., footnotes and bibliography) that provides additional resources and substantiates the author's research. Conduct a subject search using LC-defined categories, eg.
- Globalization -- Social aspects
- Human rights -- Periodicals
- Gender identity in literature
Using the library catalog to find books at Duke and beyond (TRLN, WorldCat)
Book locations in Perkins/Bostock Library and professional school libraries