Research

Primary Sources

A primary source is a piece of information about a historical event or period in which the creator of the source was an actual participant in or a contemporary of a historical moment. The purpose of primary sources is to capture the words, the thoughts and the intentions of the past. Primary sources help you to interpret what happened and why it happened.

Examples of primary sources include: documents, artifacts, historic sites, pictures, songs, or other written and tangible items created during the historical period you are studying.

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Secondary Sources

A secondary source is a source that was not created first-hand by someone who participated in the historical era. Secondary sources are usually created by historians, but based on the historian’s reading of primary sources. Secondary sources are usually written decades, if not centuries, after the event occurred by people who did not live through or participate in the event or issue. The purpose of a secondary source is to help build the story of your research from multiple perspectives and to give your research historical context.

National History Day, 2018.

Research: How to Know what's important

You will encounter a lot of information in your research, and it's important to know what is important or relevant to your argument. Below are some tips on how to find determine what is the most important to you.

Tip 1: Develop a research strategy

Reference Sources are a great starting point to get a broad overview of topics. Once you narrow down to your chosen topic, you can use the Reference Sources to find basic information.
When you are ready to delve deeper into your chosen topic, you can move on to the Online Databases. These will give you more specific research articles.
Finally, move on to the Reputable Websites to add further depth to your research. Click here for a Reliability of a Source Evaluation Checklist.

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Tip 2: Ask yourself these questions:

Does this information relate to or support my historical argument?
Does this information enhance or deepen my knowledge about my topic?
Does this information lead me to other relevant sources?

If the source or the information in the source is important, you can say YES to at least 2 out of the 3 above questions.

REMEMBER: Not everything you find will contain important information. Some of it you may have already encountered. It's your job to thoroughly read the source and ask yourself the 3 questions above as you read.