A primary source

is an eyewitness account or the first record of an event, in written or other form, including:

• news film or video,
  
• newspaper articles,
  
• diaries,
  
• manuscripts,
  
• letters,
  
• minutes of meetings,
  
• data obtained through original research,
  
• statistics or laws,
  
• reports of scientific experiments,
  
• U.S. census records,
  
• public records,
  
• creative works such as fiction, poetry, music, or art,
  
• artifacts such as buildings, photographs or dinosaur bones.

Links to Primary materials on the WWW.

Secondary sources

• are works that interpret the primary data, such as:
• a book about the French Revolution,
  
• a journal article about the effects of TV on children,
  
• a critical article about a short story.
  
  

To make comments or suggestions, or to get more information, call (334) 460-6045 or e-mail Jan Sauer.
 
Last updated: 1/2/98. js