When writing an academic essay or research paper, you have to gather information and evidence from a variety of sources. Primary sources provide raw information and first-hand evidence. Whereas secondary sources provide second-hand information and commentary from other researchers.
Wanna learn more about the differences and understand when to use which? Then keep watching! Hi, I'm Jessica from Scribbr, here to help you achieve your academic goals.
A primary source is anything that gives you direct evidence about the people, events, or phenomena that you are researching. They will usually be the main objects of your analysis. The form of primary sources depends on the subject you’re studying.
In history, primary sources are essential for learning about the events of the past. They can be anything produced at the time, such as letters, photographs, newspapers, and official records. In art and literature, your primary sources are the artistic works you’re analyzing – for example, poems, paintings or films.
And in the social sciences, primary sources are usually empirical studies or data that you collected yourself – anything from interview transcripts to social media posts. For example, say I’m writing a paper about political communication, and I want to analyze Barack Obama’s election victory speech. If I quote Obama directly in my paper, the video or transcript of the speech is the primary source.
Check out our article here for more examples! But then what is a secondary source? A secondary source is anything that describes, interprets, evaluates, or analyzes information from primary sources.
In a paper or essay, most of your secondary sources will be academic books or journal articles. But they might also include: Encyclopedias and textbooks that summarize information Reviews and essays that evaluate or interpret primary sources Or news stories or documentaries that report on your topic When you cite a secondary source, it’s usually not to analyze it directly. Instead, you’ll probably test its arguments against new evidence or use its ideas to help formulate your own.
For example, in my political communication paper, if I cite an academic article that also analyzed Obama's speeches, then I’m using a secondary source. I can also use secondary sources that focus on other famous political speeches, to gain a better understanding of the topic and how other researchers have approached it. Most papers should use both primary and secondary sources.
They complement each other to help you build a convincing argument. Primary sources make your work more original and credible, while secondary sources show how your work relates to existing research. Secondary sources often bring together a large number of primary sources that would be difficult and time-consuming to gather by yourself, so they’re important to help you gain a full understanding of your topic.
Use primary sources when you want to: Make new discoveries Provide your own original analysis Or give direct evidence for your arguments Use secondary sources when you want to: Provide background information on the topic Support or contrast your arguments with other researchers’ ideas Or use information from primary sources that you can’t access directly, for example, private letters or physical documents located elsewhere. Now no matter which kind of source you've used, make sure to cite it correctly - it's super easy with Scribbr's citation generator! If you’re not sure how to do in-text citations, check out this video here!
