a biography is a primary source

Primary vs. Secondary Sources: Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary sources.

Primary sources are materials that are eyewitness accounts or as close to the original source as possible.

Qualitative data:

• What people say. They are usually Speeches , Interviews and Conversations, and they may be captured in Videos, Audio Recordings, or transcribed into text.
• What people write.  These include Autobiographies, Memoirs, Personal Journals and Diaries, Letters, Emails, Blogs, Twitter Feeds and other forms of Social Media.
• Images and Videos.
• Government Documents-- U.S . and rest of the world.
• Laws, Court Cases and Decisions, Treaties.
• Newspapers.

Quantitative data:

• Statistics and Data .
• Polls and Public Opinions .

Please note that a book is simply a format.  You can find both primary and secondary sources published in book form.

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are interpretations and analyses based on primary sources.

For example, an autobiography is a primary source while a biography is a secondary source.

Typical secondary sources include:

• Scholarly Journal Articles.  Use these and books exclusively for writing Literature Reviews.
• Encyclopedias.
• Dictionaries.
• Documentaries.

Please note that a book is simply a format.  You can find primary and secondary sources published in book form.

When Secondary Sources Become Primary Sources

Often secondary and primary sources are relative concepts.  Typical secondary sources may be primary sources depending on the research topic.

• Intellectual history topics. For example, although scholarly journal articles are usually considered secondary sources, if one's topic is the history of human rights, then journal articles on human rights will be primary sources in this instance.  Similarly, research on the thinking of a scholar will include her published journal articles as primary sources.  
• Historical topics. Magazine articles are secondary sources, but for someone researching the view of judicial punishment in the 1920s, magazines from that time period are primary sources.  Indeed, any older publication, such as those prior to the 20th century, is very often automatically considered a primary source.  
• Newspapers may be either primary or secondary. Most articles in newspapers are secondary, but reporters may be considered as witnesses to an event.  Any topic on the media coverage of an event or phenomenon would treat newspapers as a primary source.  There are so many articles and types of articles in newspapers that newspapers can often be considered either primary or secondary.
• Last Updated: Aug 11, 2023 3:44 PM
• URL: https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/primary

Primary Sources

• What are Primary Sources?
• Digital Collections
• Print Materials
• Archives & Special Collections
• Tips for Using Primary Sources

What are Primary and Secondary Sources?

Primary Sources Primary sources are the "materials on a topic upon which subsequent interpretations or studies are based, anything from firsthand documents such as poems, diaries, court records, and interviews to research results generated by experiments, surveys, ethnographies, and so on."*

Primary sources are records of events as they are first described, usually by witnesses or people who were involved in the event. Many primary sources were created at the time of the event but can also include memoirs, oral interviews, or accounts that were recorded later.  

Visual materials, such as photos, original artwork, posters, and films are important primary sources, not only for the factual information they contain, but also for the insight they may provide into how people view their world.   Primary sources may also include sets of data, such as census statistics, which have been tabulated but not interpreted. However, in the sciences or social sciences, primary sources report the results of an experiment. 

It can sometimes be difficult to determine whether a particular source is primary or secondary, because the same source can be a primary source for one topic and a secondary source for another topic.   David McCullough’s biography, John Adams , could be a secondary source for a paper about John Adams but a primary source for a paper about how various historians have interpreted the life of John Adams.

*From Hairston, Maxine and John J. Ruszkiewicz. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1996, pg. 547.

Secondary Sources Secondary sources offer an analysis or a restatement of primary sources. They often attempt to describe or explain primary sources. Some secondary sources not only analyze primary sources, but also use them to argue a contention or persuade the reader to hold a certain opinion. Examples of secondary sources include dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, and books and articles that interpret, analyze, or review research works.

More Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources

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• Last Updated: Apr 24, 2024 11:52 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.georgetown.edu/primary_sources

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Is a Biography a Primary Source? Details Every Author Should Know

POSTED ON Oct 1, 2023

Written by Shannon Clark

Is a biography a primary source? Good question.

When writing for an audience, adding relevant quotes, excerpts, and data provides credibility to your work. Primary sources reign supreme because information that comes from the original source leaves little room for error. In our digital age, where so much information is repeated from website to website, it's easy for data to be mistyped, quotes to be misattributed, and information to just be wrong.

It's similar to the group game, Telephone, that kids play. One person starts the game by whispering a phrase into the person's ear next to them. The phrase is repeated until it gets to the last person who says the phrase out loud to see if the message changed. When I played it as a little girl, the phrase hardly ever came out like the original. We run the same risk when we copy statistics or information from random websites that aren't the primary or original source.

In the first half of this article, we'll answer the question, “Is a biography a primary source?” define what the answer means, and then take a closer look at why biographies are categorized as such. In the second part, we’ll look at what to consider before writing one.

Table of Contents

Is a biography a primary source.

The short answer is no. In most cases, a biography is considered a secondary source; however, there’s a little more to it than that.

A primary source is a first-person account (e.g., direct quote, diary entry) or the original source of information (e.g., a research organization that creates original data for an industry.).

A secondary source is a third-party account where the person or company sharing the information, got it from somewhere else. As I mentioned in the Telephone example, the problem with secondary sources is that since they aren't the first hands to touch the information, there's no guarantee that it's correct. Primary sources aren't always available, but if you have a choice between the two, do the extra research to find the primary source. It will pay off in the long run.

A biography is a third-person account of another person’s life written by a biographer whose name appears on the cover. The subject of the biography can be living or deceased and the work can be authorized or unauthorized. For these reasons, biographies are classified as secondary sources. 

Related: Biography vs Memoir

The rare occasion when a biography can be used as a primary source is when the biographer is the subject of the content being written.

For example, if one were to write an article that analyzed the works of the American biographer Jean Strouse, her best biographies , Alice James: A Biography or Morgan: American Financier would be considered primary sources.

The source status of her biographies changes from secondary to primary because it is her writing that's being analyzed not the personal knowledge of what she wrote (unless that was part of the review).

What’s the Difference Between an Authorized and an Unauthorized Biography? 

With an authorized biography, the subject of the work is either involved in the writing process or they’ve given permission for the biographer to write the book. The biographer works with the person to ensure that the information included is correct and approved. This can include talking to close family members and friends to get a more well-rounded, objective view of the person's life.

Unauthorized biographies are not approved by the subject. Anyone can write an unauthorized biography about anyone they’d like. You don’t need permission, and the final book doesn’t have to be approved to be published; however, unauthorized biographies can be seen as less reliable than approved ones. Content presented as fact may come into question exposing the work to libel, invasion of privacy claims, and other legal issues. To be clear, biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs can all be vulnerable to legal claims, so tread lightly when writing them. 

According to the Writer’s GPS: A guide for navigating the legal landscape of publishing by intellectual property attorney Matt Knight, securing life story rights is key to protecting yourself and your book from legal claims. Regarding life story rights, he says the following:

Life story rights are a collection of legal rights held by an individual regarding a story about someone's life. The purpose for securing these rights or the permission to use the facts of someone's life is to protect the writer and publisher from being sued for defamation, invasion of privacy, or the misappropriation of the right to publicity. Life story rights agreements, depending on the breadth of the contract language, allows the writer to use and potentially change or dramatize the life story for entertainment purposes (whether in print or on screen). Knight, M. (2020). The Writer’s Legal GPS: A Guide for Navigating the Legal Landscape of Publishing (A Sidebar Saturdays Desktop Reference) . Sidebar Saturdays Desk Referen.

If you're considering writing a biography (authorized or unauthorized), it's important to understand potential liability issues and how they can impact you as the writer.

It's interesting that for every authorized biography, it is not uncommon to find many unauthorized ones. For actress Elizabeth Taylor, the book on the left (below) was released in December 2022 and listed as “ the first ever authorized biography of the most famous movie star of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Taylor “; however, I found many biographies listed for her over the years (I stopped counting at 20).

Is it Possible to Write a Biography about Yourself? 

No. If you write a biography about yourself it is called an autobiography (different from a memoir). If you get a ghostwriter to write it, it is still an autobiography. Autobiographies are primary sources because they are first-hand accounts based on the subjects' memories and recall of past experiences. 

Unlike a biography, the subject of the autobiography is viewed as the author , whether they wrote it or used a ghostwriter . Autobiographies are considered subjective compared to biographies since they are a single person's account of events (not friends, family, or other third-party references like with a biography.)

How do You Write a Biography About Someone Who Has Passed?

As previously mentioned, if you can get permission to write the biography, do so. If the person is deceased, look for a representative, like a family member, or an executor of their estate. It’s important to share with them your plan for writing the person’s life story and hopefully get the green light to move forward. Getting approval can open the door to accessing archives and other personal details about the person to create a more in-depth work. This can include personal photos, diaries, and other information. Compare this to an unauthorized biography where you may only have access to what has already been talked about or uncovered. 

If the person passed a long time ago, getting permission might be a challenge, but you can still write the biography. Just do your research, save your notes, and try to write a biography that is thorough, objective, and professional. Prioritize primary sources over secondary and cite all of your sources to add credibility. It may be tempting to try to rush through the process, especially when you've been staring at the same information day after day, but doing a thorough job can pay big dividends.

In the writing of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Trajedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer , it took author, Martin J. Sherwin, 25 years to complete the work. The first 20 years were spent doing interviews and collecting over fifty boxes of archives (some received through the Freedom of Information Act). The last five years he partnered with author Kai Bird to complete the work . While it doesn't take every biographer that long to write a biography, it does add a weighty perspective to what writing an in-depth book about someone's life could entail.

Whether you write an authorized or unauthorized biography, the quality and objectivity of your writing are what matter most. Although biographies are considered secondary sources, it doesn’t mean that they can’t make a significant contribution to the tapestry of a person’s public life record. 

Seek out the permission of the person you want to write about if they are living or their family or representative if they are incapacitated or deceased. People’s life stories are personal, so the best advice from one writer to another is to write their stories with the same respect you’d want someone to write yours. This will add a strong entry to your book portfolio, save you a lot of headaches in the long run, and help keep you out of a courtroom.

Note: In this article, we touched on nonfiction life stories, but there are also biographical novels (fictitious) and autobiographical fiction that are not within the scope of this article. For more information on creative nonfiction, start here . 

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Library Research Guide for the History of Science: Introduction

• What is a Primary Source?
• Senior Theses 2023
• Background and Context/Biography
• Exploring Your Topic
• Using HOLLIS
• What is a Secondary Source?

Page Contents

Knowing a primary source when you see one, kinds of primary sources, find primary sources in hollis, using digital libraries and collections online, using bibliographies.

• Exploring the Special Collections at Harvard
• Citing Sources & Organizing Research

Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They 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 are characterized by their content, regardless of the format available. (Handwritten notes could be published; the published book might be digitized or put on microfilm, but those notes are still primary sources in any format).

Some types of primary sources:

• Original documents (excerpts or translations acceptable): Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news film footage, contemporary newspaper articles, autobiographies, official records, pamphlets, meeting notes, photographs, contemporary sketches
• Creative works : Poetry, drama, novels, music, art 
• Relics or artifacts : Furniture, clothing, buildings

Examples of primary sources include:

• A poster from the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters' 1962 strike
• The papers of William James
• A 1970 U.S. State Dept document updating Nixon on U.S.-Soviet space cooperation activities (Harvard login)
• A British pamphlet: "Electric Lighting for Country Houses," 1898
• Phineas Gage's skull
• The text of J. Robert Oppenheimer's "Atomic Weapons" presentation to the American Philosophical Society

Outline of Primary Sources for History

Archives and Manuscripts

Archives and manuscripts are the unpublished records of persons (letters, notes, diaries, etc.) and organizations. What are Archives?   Usually each archival collection has a (short) catalog record and a detailed finding aid (which is often available online).

• "Catalog record” refers to the kind of record found in library online catalogs, similar to those for books, although often a bit longer. Example of an Archive record .
• “Finding aid” (sometimes called an inventory) generally refers to a list of the folder labels for the collection, accompanied by a brief collection overview (scope and contents note) and a biographical (or institutional) note on the creator of the collection.  Finding aids may be as long as needed given the size of the collection.  They vary considerably according to the practices of individual repositories. Example of a Finding aid .

To find  Archives and manuscripts  at Harvard, go to  HOLLIS Advanced search .  Search your keywords or Subject terms (see the  HOLLIS page of this guide ) in the Library Catalog, limiting to Resource Type: Archives/Manuscripts.  You can choose the library at the right (Search Scope).  Countway  Medicine has abundant medical archives, and Schlesinger has many archives of women activists, many in health and reproductive rights fields.    Sample search on Subject: Women health .

Library Research Guide for Finding Manuscripts and Archival Collections explains

• How to find archives and manuscripts at Harvard
• How to find archives and manuscripts elsewhere in US via search tools and via subject guides .
• How to find archives and manuscripts in Europe and elsewhere.
• Requesting digitization of archival material from Harvard and from other repositories .

For digitized archival material together with other kinds of primary sources:

• Finding Primary Sources Online offers general instructions for finding primary sources online and a list of resources by region and country
• Online Primary Source Collections for the History of Science lists digital collections at Harvard and beyond by topic.
• Online Primary Source Collections for History lists digital collections at Harvard and beyond by topic.

Methods for finding books are described under the HOLLIS page  of this guide and in the Finding Primary Sources in HOLLIS box on this page. 

• Book Reviews may give an indication as to how a scientific work was received. See:   Finding Book Reviews . 
• Numerous, especially pre-1923 books (as well as periodicals and other sources) can be found and full text searched in several digital libraries (see box on this page).

Periodicals

Scientific articles :

Web of Science Citation Indexes (Harvard Login)  (1900- ) articles in all areas of science. Includes medical articles not in PubMed. You can use the Cited Reference search in the Web of Science to find primary source articles that cite a specified article, thus getting an idea of its reception. More information on the Web of Science .

PubMed (1946- ) covers, usually with abstracts, periodical articles on all areas of medicine. - --Be sure to look at the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)  at the bottom of pertinent records. Very recent articles may not as yet received their MeSH terms.  So look at older records to find the MeSH terms, and use a variety of keywords as well as MeSH terms to find the new records. --​The MeSH terms are the same as the Medical Subject terms found in HOLLIS. --Hit Free article or Try Harvard Library, not the publisher's name to see full text

JSTOR (Harvard Login)  offers full-text of complete runs (up to about 5 years ago) of over 400 journals. JSTOR allows simultaneous or individual searching, full-text searching optional, numerous journals in a variety of fields of science and medicine. See the list at the bottom of the Advanced search screen. JSTOR searches the "Notes and News" sections of journals ( Science is especially rich in this material). In Advanced Search choose Item Type: Miscellaneous to limit largely to "Notes and News".

PsycINFO) (Harvard Login)  (1872- ) indexes the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines

Many more scientific periodical indexes are listed in the Library Research Guide for the History of Science .

General interest magazines and periodicals see:

American Periodicals Series Online (Harvard Login)  (1740-1900) offers full text of about 1100 American periodicals. Includes several scientific and medical journals including the American Journal of Science and the Medical Repository. In cases where a periodical started before 1900, coverage is included until 1940.

British Periodicals (Harvard Login)  (1681-1920) offers full text for several hundred British periodicals.

Ethnic NewsWatch (Harvard Login)  (1959- ) is a full text database of the newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.

Periodicals Index Online (Harvard Login)  indexes contents of thousands of US and European journals in the humanities and social sciences, from their first issues to 1995.

Reader's Guide Retrospective (WilsonWeb) (Harvard Login)  (1890-1982)  indexes many American popular periodicals.

Many more general periodical indexes are listed in Finding Articles in General and Popular Periodicals (North America and Western Europe) .

Articles in non-science fields (religion, public policy): see the list in the Library Research Guide for History .

Professional/Trade : Aimed at particular trades or professions.  See the Library Research Guide for History

Newspaper articles : see the Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes .

Personal accounts . These are first person narratives recalling or describing a person’s life and opinions. These include Diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, and when delivered orally and recorded: Oral histories and Interviews.

National Library of Medicine Oral Histories

Regulatory Oral History Hub  (Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University) offers links to digital collections containing interviews with regulators, lawyers, and judges. Mainly U.S.

Visual sources :

Records for many, but by no means all, individual Harvard University Library images are available in  HOLLIS Images , an online catalog of images. Records include subjects and a thumbnail image.  HOLLIS Images is included in HOLLIS  searches.

Science & Society Picture Library offers over 50,000 images from the Science Museum (London), the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and the National Railway Museum.

Database of Scientific Illustrators  (DSI) includes over 12500 illustrators in natural history, medicine, technology and various sciences worldwide, c.1450-1950. Living illustrators excluded. 

NYPL Digital Gallery Pictures of Science: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) includes prints and photographs from the U.S. National Library of Medicine. (The IHM is contained within a larger NLM image database, so this link goes to a specialized search).

Images From the History of the Public Health Service: a Photographic Exhibit .

Wellcome Images

Films/Videos

To find films in  HOLLIS , search your topic keywords, then on the right side of the results screen, look at Resource Type and choose video/film.

To find books about films about your topic, search your topic keywords AND "in motion pictures" ​  (in "")

​Film Platform  offers numerous documentary films on a wide variety of subjects.  There are collections on several topics. Searches can be filtered by topic, country of production, and language. 

A list of general sources for images and film is available in the Library Research Guide for History and additional sources for the history of science in Library Research Guide for the History of Science .

Government documents often concern matters of science and health policy.  For Congressional documents, especially committee reports, see ProQuest Congressional (Harvard Login ). 

HathiTrust Digital Library . Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata and subject terms. The catalog can be searched separately.  Many government documents are full text viewable.  Search US government department as Author.

More sources are listed in the Library Research Guide for History

For artifacts and other objects , the Historic Scientific Instruments Collection in the Science Center includes over 15,000 instruments, often with contemporary documentation, from 1450 through the 20th century worldwide.

Waywiser, online database of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments .

Warren Anatomical Museum of the Center for the History of Medicine in the Countway Library of Medicine has a rich collection of medical artifacts and specimens.

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Fall 2020: these collections are closed during the pandemic. Check out their links above to see what they have available online.

Primary Source Terms :

You can limit HOLLIS  searches to your time period, but sources may be published later, such as a person's diary published posthumously. Find these with these special Subject terms.

You can use the following terms to search HOLLIS for primary sources:

• Correspondence
• Description and travel
• Manuscripts
• Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
• Personal narratives (refers to accounts of wars and diseases only)
• Pictorial works
• Sources (usually refers to collections of published primary sources)

Include these terms with your topical words in HOLLIS searches. For example: tuberculosis personal narratives

Online Primary Source Collections for the History of Science lists digital collections at Harvard and beyond by topic

Google Book Search, HathiTrust Digital Library and Internet Archives offer books and periodicals digitized from numerous libraries.  Only out-of-copyright, generally post-1923, books are fully viewable.  Each of these three digital libraries allows searching full text over their entire collections.

Google Book Search

HathiTrust Digital Library . Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata and subject terms. The catalog can be searched separately.  Many post-1923 out-of-copyright books, especially government documents, are full text viewable. You can search within copyright books to see what page your search term is on.

Internet Archive now offers a beta full text search. Put your terms (phrases or personal names, in quotation marks (""), work best) in the search box. 

The Online Books Page arranges electronic texts by Library of Congress call numbers and is searchable (but not full text searchable).  Includes books not in Google Books, HathiTrust, or Internet Archive. Has many other useful features.

Medical Heritage Library . Information about the Medical Heritage Library. Now searchable full text.

UK Medical Heritage Library

Biodiversity Heritage Library

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics (1493-1922) provides digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University libraries and archives.

Expeditions and Discoveries (1626-1953) features nine expeditions in anthropology and archaeology, astronomy, botany, and oceanography in which Harvard University played a significant role. Includes manuscripts and records, published materials, visual works, and maps from 14 Harvard repositories.

Defining Gender Online: Five Centuries of Advice Literature for Men and Women (1450-1910).

Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Sex, Gender, and the Family.

Many more general History digital libraries and collections: Library Research Guide for History

More History of Science digital libraries: Library Research Guide for the History of Science .

There may already be a detailed list of sources (a bibliography) for your topic.

For instance:

A bibliography of eugenics , by Samuel J. Holmes ... Berkeley, Calif., University of California press, 1924, 514 p. ( University of California publications in zoology . vol. XXV)  Full text online .

Look for specialized subject bibliographies in HOLLIS Catalog . Example .   WorldCat can do similar searches in the Subject Keyword field for non-Harvard holdings.

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Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

Biographical Resources: A Research Guide: Introduction

Introduction.

• National and International Biographies
• Biographical Indexes
• K. G. Saur Indexes & Microfiche
• Subject Biographies
• Dissertations and Theses
• Research Help

We purchase access to new online versions of major biographical reference sources as they become available. Many important biographical resources are available in print and on microfilm. This guide combines online titles with the selected microform and print biography titles in the Olin and Africana reference collections. Online databases are available to Cornell users only.

Biography is a branch of the study of history. The reliability of biographical sources varies widely and is subject to the usual vagaries of historical studies: lack of accurate information, too much or conflicting information, too little information, psychological theorizing, etc. But a well-written biographical article in a reliable reference book or database can be a source of both pleasure and enlightenment. Enjoy!

For further information or to locate titles not listed here, always feel free to consult with the reference staff .

Reference Help

Permissions Information

If you wish to use or adapt any or all of the content of this Guide go to Cornell Library's Research Guides Use Conditions to review our use permissions and our Creative Commons license.

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Primary Sources Guide

Understanding research sources.

• Evaluating Primary Sources
• African American Studies
• Latin American & Latina/o Studies
• Native American & Indigenous Studies
• Citing Primary Sources

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• What are Primary Sources?
• What are Secondary Sources?
• What are Tertiary Sources?

A primary source is a first-hand account from a person or organization who:

• Created an original work
• Participated in new scientific discoveries
• Witnessed an event

Some examples of primary sources include:

• Art and artifacts
• Autobiographies, diaries, and memoirs
• Interviews and oral histories
• Novels and poetry
• Photographs
• Data and surveys

Why are primary sources useful?  Primary sources are useful to:

• Observe and analyze an event from an eyewitness perspective
• Develop your own opinions and explanations
• Learn if you agree or disagree with the authors of secondary/tertiary sources and their conclusions

A secondary source has the following qualities:

• It comments on or analyzes something
• It often summarizes or interprets primary sources
• It's usually written by someone who was not directly involved or an eyewitness

Some examples of secondary sources include:

• Analysis or criticism, such as literary criticism
• Biographies
• Essays and reviews

Why are secondary sources useful? Secondary sources are useful because they:

• Help you consider diverse viewpoints about a topic
• Organize and outline information in an approachable way
• Offer information and analysis from experts

Remember, secondary sources are often based on studying and analyzing primary sources . Another way to think about it? Your research paper is a secondary source because you're analyzing and interpreting other sources.

A tertiary source has the following qualities:

• It lists and compiles information without additional analysis
• It repackages important ideas and information from other primary and secondary sources

Some examples of tertiary sources include:

• Directories of local, state, and national organizations
• Encyclopedias and dictionaries
• Guidebooks and handbooks

Why are tertiary sources useful? Tertiary sources are useful because they help you:

• Gather background information about a topic or concept
• Find a variety of information in one source
• Provide information in a concise and compact way

Examples of Primary Sources vs. Other Sources

• Communications

One area of study at Central Piedmont where primary sources are often used is History . Here are some examples:

• Primary Source = Autobiography :  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
• Secondary Source = Biography :  Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight

Another area of study at Central Piedmont where primary sources often come into play is English . Here are some examples:

• Primary Source = Novel :  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Secondary Source = Literary Criticism :  Gabriel García Márquez in Retrospect: A Collection Book , edited by Gene H. Bell-Villada

One other area of study at Central Piedmont where primary sources often come into play is Communications . Here are some examples:

• Primary Sources = Memoir :  Deaf Utopia: A Memoir--And a Love Letter to a Way of Life  by Nyle DiMarco
• Secondary Sources = Journal Article : "Curriculum and Instruction for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: Evidence from the Past—Considerations for the Future" (2023) by Maria C. Hartman, Elaine R. Smolen, and Brynne Powell
• Tertiary Sources = Reference Book :  American Sign Language: A Step-by-Step Guide to Signing by Suzie Chafin

Credit : Austin Community College's Primary Sources guide served as the inspiration and model for this LibGuide.

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Introduction to primary source research, definitions, examples of primary sources by discipline, head of bancroft public services.

• Archives terminology
• How to use library catalogs
• How to use finding aids/collection guides
• How to plan your visit to an archive
• Using digitized primary sources
• Evaluating primary sources

A primary source is an eyewitness account of an event or data obtained through original statistical or scientific research. 

What are some examples of primary sources?

• Photographs
• Official records (government reports, transcripts, court records, death certificates, etc.)
• Contemporary news reports (newspapers, telecasts, radio addresses, etc.)
• Polls and Public Opinion Data
• Laws, statutes, hearings

Secondary Source

A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources are one or more steps removed from the event. Secondary sources may include pictures of primary sources or quotes from them. Some types of secondary sources include: journal/magazine articles, textbooks, commentaries, and encyclopedias.

Newspapers may be either primary or secondary. Most articles in newspapers are secondary, but reporters may be considered as witnesses to an event.  Any topic on the media coverage of an event or phenomenon would treat newspapers as a primary source. 

Source: https://guides.libraries.indiana.edu/primarysources

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Identifying Primary and Secondary Sources

• Examples: Primary Sources
• Examples: Secondary Sources

The materials, evidence, or data used in your research are known as sources. As foundations of your research, these sources of information are typically classified into two broad categories— primary and secondary.

Primary Sources

A  primary source  provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person or work of art. Characteristically, primary sources are contemporary to the events and people described and show minimal or no mediation between the document/artifact and its creator. As to the format, primary source materials can be written and non-written, the latter including sound, picture, and artifact. Examples of primary sources include:

Secondary Sources

A  secondary source , in contrast, lacks the immediacy of a primary record. As materials produced sometime after an event happened, they contain information that has been interpreted, commented, analyzed or processed in such a way that it no longer conveys the freshness of the original. History textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, interpretive journal articles, and book reviews are all examples of secondary sources. Secondary sources are often based on primary sources. Primary and Secondary Sources Compared An example from the printed press serves to further distinguish primary from secondary sources. In writing a narrative of the political turmoil surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election, a researcher will likely tap newspaper reports of that time for factual information on the events. The researcher will use these reports as primary sources because they offer direct or firsthand evidence of the events, as they first took place. A column in the Op/Ed section of a newspaper commenting on the election, however, is less likely to serve these purposes. In this case, a columnist’s analysis of the election controversy is considered to be a secondary source, primarily because it is not a close factual account or recording of the events. Bear in mind, however, that primary and secondary sources are not fixed categories. The use of evidence as a primary or secondary source hinges on the type of research you are conducting. If the researcher of the 2000 presidential election were interested in people’s perceptions of the political and legal electoral controversy, the Op/Ed columns will likely be good primary sources for surveying public opinion of these landmark events.

Primary Source Searching 

The chart below illustrates possible uses of primary and secondary sources by discipline, primary source searching in iucat.

Use the IU online library ca

talog (IUCAT) to look for primary source materials. Employ the Library of Congress subject heading subdivisions below to retrieve primary materials from IUCAT. These subdivisions indicate the form in which the material is organized and presented.

Subject Heading Subdivisions

Source Search Examples

Use the subject subdivisions to build search statements that may include names, events or topics. Below is a select sample of library catalog searches. Enter these terms and search for as Subject in IUCAT. You may also wish to try search for a ALL Fields which will give you a larger but less focused result. Use the AND operator (or the + sign) to combine ideas; for example, novelists and correspondence. AND will find your search words in any section of the subject headings and will increase the likelihood that you will find relevant material

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What are Primary Sources?

Primary sources for humanities and social sciences : what are primary sources.

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Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs or oral histories. They enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period to help them understand and interpret the past. (See  definition  from the American Library Association's Reference & User Services Association's History Section.)

Examples of primary sources include diaries, speeches, letters, memos, manuscripts, and other papers; memoirs and autobiographies; records of information collected by government agencies and organizations; published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper articles) written at the time; photographs, audio recordings, and moving pictures or video recordings; research data; and objects or artifacts. 

Primary sources vary by discipline. In history, primary sources are original records that provide firsthand evidence to understand a historical event or period. In literature, primary sources are the original texts (e.g., novels, short stories, plays, etc.). In the arts, primary sources are original works of art or music. In the natural or social sciences, the results of an experiment or study are typically found in scholarly articles or conference papers; these articles and papers that present original results are considered primary sources.

Primary sources are found in a variety of formats: original documents in archives and libraries; materials reprinted in published sources, such as collections of letters, diaries, or autobiographies; microforms; digitized on the Web, or recordings. This guide emphasizes primary sources available online through library subscription databases and free Web sites.

Some examples of types and formats for primary sources include:

• Books such as personal narratives, memoirs, and autobiographies, collected works, and collections of documents (these may be edited and published after the historical event or time period)
• Journal and magazine articles  
• Newspaper articles  
• Government documents
• Archival sources  such as diaries, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts, and other papers and records of organizations
• Multimedia sources such as photographs, audio recordings, and motion pictures or video recording

Use the above tabs to locate primary sources of these different types and formats. The Online Primary Sources tab/page lists primary sources found in library subscription databases and on free Web sites that are varied in type and do not fit one of the above tab categories.

Secondary sources are any published or unpublished works that are a step removed from original sources, usually describing, summarizing, analyzing, evaluating, derived from, or based on primary sources. Some examples of secondary sources are: histories about a topic, works of criticism and interpretation, monographs, textbooks, biographies, dictionaries and encyclopedias, handbooks and manuals, bibliographies, and directories. (See definition from ABC-CLIO Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science.)

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Information

Primary sources.

• What is a Primary Source
• Locating Primary Source Materials
• Using Primary Sources
• Digital Primary Sources
• Historic Newspapers
• Historic Census Data and Statistics

What is a Primary Source?

Definition of Primary Sources:  

A primary source is a piece of evidence created during the time you are studying. These sources offer an eye-witness view of a particular event. They can be any type of format, as long as you as the researcher are looking for the source's context: Who made this, and what was their perspective? What other sources describe the same events? Whose perspective isn't represented, and where can you find it? What was the world like when this thing was made? With primary sources, you will ask a lot of questions!

Some common types of records used as primary sources include:

• Original Documents , including eyewitness accounts or the first record of events such as diaries, speeches, letters, manuscripts, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, or official records
• Creative Works such as literature, music, art, film, etc.
• Relics or Artifacts such as pottery, furniture, clothing, and buildings
• Data from original research whether statistical or scientific

Remember: you have to find context for your primary sources.

What is a Secondary Source?

Definition of a secondary source:.

A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources in them. Some common types of secondary sources include:

• A journal/magazine article which interprets or reviews previous findings 
• A history textbook 
• A book about the effects of WWI 
• Biographies
• Encyclopedia articles

Remember: a secondary source is making an argument based on research from other primary and secondary sources.

Primary Sources by Discipline

Different academic disciplines have different definitions of what constitutes a primary source:.

In the Humanities (history, literature, religion), primary sources focus on original documents or accounts contemporary to a specific event or an individual’s life. Terms such as “eyewitness” or “firsthand” are also commonly used to describe these sources. Autobiographical accounts written at a later date are also considered primary sources. Letters, diaries, journal entries, public records as well as contemporaneous newspapers articles offer solid examples of this type of primary source. Fictional works such as short stories or novels written during that specific time period constitute primary documents, too.

In the Arts (art, dance, music, theatre), primary sources are as diverse as the various disciplines in the category. They may include paintings, sculpture, prints, performances, video or audio recordings, scripts, or musical scores. Social Sciences (psychology, sociology, education) place a heavy emphasis on unanalyzed data sets as primary sources. Numerical data sets such as census figures, opinion polls, surveys or interview transcripts constitute this type of raw, uninterpreted data. A researcher’s field notes are also primary sources in the social sciences. In the Sciences (biology, ecology, chemistry), primary source documents focus on original research, ideas, or findings published in academic journals. These articles mark the first publication of such research; and they detail the researcher’s methodology and results. Plant or mineral samples and other artifacts are primary sources as well.

In STEM fields , primary sources may include papers or proceedings from scientific conferences; journal articles sharing original research, technical reports, patents, lab notes, and researcher correspondence or diaries.

Portions borrowed from Berea College Hutchins Library

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Is it a primary source?

Are you using a primary source?

It depends on the questions you're asking!

Primary Resources Presentation Slides

Primary vs. secondary sources, differentiating primary and secondary sources in each discipline.

While primary sources offer a firsthand account, secondary sources are written after the fact. Secondary sources analyze, interpret, explain, or analyze a primary source, event or individual. These resources represent a second publication cycle, tasked with presenting an argument or to persuade the reader.

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Biographical Research: Primary Sources

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American Library Association Guide for Primary Source Materials

A guide to finding, evaluating, and using primary source materials created by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association (ALA).

• American Library Association Primary Source Guide Home
• Finding Primary Sources
• Evaluating Primary Sources
• Using Primary Sources

Recommended Primary Source Resources

• Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window Diverse primary source materials from books, newspapers and periodicals with views of American history and culture during the 19th century. Eyewitness accounts of historical events, descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records are available in a user-friendly online environment.
• Library of Congress Primary Source Collections
• National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections Provided by the Library of Congress, NUCMC is a searchable catalog of manuscript collections in WorldCat.
• Primary Source Sets From the Library of Congress
• Shapell Manuscript Foundation "The Shapell Manuscript Foundation has an extensive collection of primary sources, such as letters, documents, photographs, and other artifacts. [They] specialize in manuscripts relating to American History, including the Civil War, American Presidents, etc."
• Smithsonian Collections Digital images of the Smithsonian's collections.
• NARA - National Archives and Records Administration Includes several online exhibits and catalog of digitized documents and photographs.
• Library of Congress Digital Collections
• Newberry Library Digital Collections: Everett D. Graff Collection of Americana Documents America's westward expansion; includes many primary sources.

Primary Source Material Collections - Global

Partnership of major research institutions and libraries creating digital archive of library materials. Full text access only to the portion of the archive comprising public domain works, indicated by "Full View". Downloading or printing depends on each title's copyright status. Click into each title to see entitlements on the left sidebar.

• Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window Now on the main ProQuest platform, C19 Index is the bibliographic spine of 19th century research, providing integrated access to the most important finding aids for books, periodicals, official publications, newspapers and archives.

Full text of 180,000 books published from 1700 to 1799. Transitioning to a new platform. Not all Browse functions working.

• World History Sources A project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Digital Collections of Diaries, Letters, etc.

• Influenza Encyclopedia: The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 Collection of digitized primary source documents, images and narratives detailing the impact of the 1918-19 epidemic on 50 American cities.
• Library of Congress Early Presidential Collections View the presidential papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Calvin Coolidge.
• American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement Collection of first hand accounts of exploration from the Vikings to the 1800s.
• American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920 Published narratives by Americans and visitors traveling in the colonies and U.S.
• The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project From the University of North Carolina/Greensboro; searchable; includes diaries, letters, oral histories, photographs, posters, publications, and uniforms
• Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences of World War I From Brigham Young Libraries
• Discovering American Women's History Online Digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the U.S. from the 1600's to the present.
• Documenting the American South Digitized primary source material (books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs) relating to southern history, literature and culture.
• Rosa Parks In Her Own Words An exhibit from the Library of Congress.
• American Presidency Project A comprehensive collection of resources pertaining to the study of the presidency from UCSB.

Digital Collections of Early Books & Journals

• American Periodicals (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window Full text of over 1,100 journals and magazines both scholarly and popular published from 1740 to 1900.
• Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Digital Edition This link opens in a new window Full texts of all the books published in America from 1639 until 1800.

New interface 1/4/24. From Readex. Books, pamphlets, and broadsides published during the early 19th century from the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.

• Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window Full texts of over 180,000 books published mostly in the UK from 1700 to 1799.
• European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 This link opens in a new window A comprehensive bibliography of printed works about the Americas written in Europe before 1750.
• Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window Full text of over 1.7 million books, documents and articles from thousands of journals and newspapers.

Digital Historic Documents

• [U.S.] Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution From the Library of Congress.
• Avalon Project Full text of documents relating to the fields of history, law, politics, diplomacy, government and economics from the colonial era to the present.
• A Century of Law Making Full text documentary record of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention and the first 42 Congresses of the United States (1774-1873) from the Law Library of Congress.
• CQ Historic Documents This link opens in a new window Full text of thousands of U.S. documents since 1972, including presidential speeches, treaties, Supreme Court decisions and various government reports.
• Foreign Relations of the United States Official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. The series is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian. There are two cumulative indexes covering 1861-1899 and 1900-1918.
• Historic Government Publications from World War II: a Digital Library. Collection of over 200 WWII era pamphlets mostly dealing with the home front, civil defence and war work.

READING EPUB FILES When opening an ePub file, make sure to choose “save file” Remember the file name and where it is saved on your computer. You will need to know this when it is time to read the file in the EPUBReader extension. Add the CHROME EPUBReader browser extension: menu icon (3 dots) > more tools > extensions > get more extensions > search for EPUBReader > add to chrome > close welcome box.  The EPUBReader icon should be automatically added to your toolbar.  Add the Firefox browser extension:  menu icon (3 lines) > add-ons > get add-ons > see more add-ons > search for EPUBReader > add to firefox > close the welcome box The EPUBReader icon should be automatically added to your toolbar. TO READ AN EPUB FILE: Click on the EPUBReader icon in your Chrome or Firefox toolbar to open it > click on the folder icon at the top of the page and select the previously saved ePub file.  NOTE: Your file will not be saved in the Reader; you will have to open the file each time you want to read it.

• Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. Collection of primary sources relating to the 1692 trials and a new transcription of the court records. Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia (DH@UVA).
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Collection of materials on ships, crews, slaves and places of embarkation and landing.
• Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 Digital collection from Harvard documenting immigration to the U.S. Primarily focusing on the 19th century, it includes books, pamphlets, photographs and manuscript material.

Digital Historical Documents, continued

• History Vault: American Politics and Society from JFK to Watergate, 1960-1975 This link opens in a new window Key archival materials consisting of digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon presidencies taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections.
• History Vault: NAACP Papers, The NAACP's Major Campaigns-Legal Department Files This link opens in a new window Working case files of the NAACP's Legal Department from 1956 to 1972. The cases pertain to school desegregation, abuses of police procedure, employment discrimination, freedom of speech, privacy, freedom of association, and housing discrimination.
• History Vault: NAACP Papers, Special Subjects This link opens in a new window Records covering subjects that are crucial to the NAACP's history, such as civil rights complaints and legislation, the Klan, Birth of a Nation, the Walter White-W. E. B. Du Bois controversy of 1933-1934, the "red scare," relations with African colonial liberation movements, fundraising and membership recruitment, urban riots, the War on Poverty, and the emergence of the Black Power Movement.
• History Vault: Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy, 1960-1975 This link opens in a new window Primary source materials highlighting U.S. international relations from the early days of the Kennedy administration, through the escalation of the war during the Johnson administration, to the final resolution of the war at the Paris Peace Talks.
• Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower This link opens in a new window Full text of 21 volumes of Eisenhower's most significant writings.

Historic Audio Sources

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Primary Sources Definition

What are primary sources .

Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the truth of what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied.  A primary source (also called original source ) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of information about the topic.

Similar definitions are used in library science , and other areas of scholarship. In journalism, a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources , which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources, though the distinction is not a sharp one.

Newspaper Research

• Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window Includes the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Christian Science Monitor, and more. Newspapers are in PDF format and provide a visual representation of the newspaper.
• ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window Includes both newspapers and scholarly journals
• Historical Newspapers The Guardian and The Observer Search The Guardian (1821-2003) and its sister paper, The Observer (1791-2003)
• New York Newspaper Archive This link opens in a new window Access New York Newspaper Archives and discover stories of the past with NewspaperArchive.com. The archive covers New York history from 1753-2023, with lots of content from smaller, local newspapers. Articles have been scanned as PDFs and include images and advertisements, and are full text searchable.
• America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window America's Historical Newspapers includes articles from local and regional American and Hispanic American newspapers from all 50 states. Coverage dates from 1690 to the early 20th century. Articles have been scanned as PDFs and include images and advertisements, and are full text searchable.
• American Periodicals Series Online This link opens in a new window includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century, 1740-1940.
• Times Digital Archive (London) This link opens in a new window Provides full-text access to back issues of The Times newspaper. Dates of coverage: 1785 to 2006.
• Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 This link opens in a new window Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 provides access to searchable digitized copies of newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries for a Hispanic readership. It features hundreds of monolingual and bilingual newspapers in Spanish and English, including many obscure titles from the 19th century.
• Global Newsstream This link opens in a new window Full text of 300+ U.S. and international news sources. Includes coverage of 150+ major U.S. and international newspapers such as The New York Times and the Times of London, plus hundreds of other news sources and news wires.
• Gale Newspaper Sources This link opens in a new window The Gale NewsVault is a portal to several historical collections of British newspapers and periodicals. It enables full-text searching across several titles simultaneously, including the Times of London, Financial Times, and Times Literary Supplement, along with aggregate newspaper and periodical collections covering the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
• Access World News This link opens in a new window Access World News provides the html full text and, for some titles, the pdf "as printed" visual representation, of articles from a variety of national and international news sources, including newspapers, digital-native news websites, television and radio transcripts, blogs, college and university newspapers, journals, magazines, and some audio and video. Most international titles are English language. Dates of coverage vary from title to title, but primarily span the late 20th century to present.

The Billy Rose Theatre Collection

TITLE: [Scene from Othello with Paul Robeson as Othello and Uta Hagen as Desdemona, Theatre Guild Production, Broadway, 1943-44]   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robeson_Hagen_Othello.jpg SOURCE:Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540

The Billy Rose Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. This image is a work of an employee of the United States Farm Security Administration or Office of War Information domestic photographic units, created during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

• Billy Rose Collection NYPL The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts.
• New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts On this site, you can search The New York Public Library's vast holdings, initiate a research visit, submit a query to an archivist, and access digitized material. Most Broadway shows can be viewed in the special collections. You will need a NYPL library card to view them.
• ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid.
• WorldCat - FirstSearch (OCLC) This link opens in a new window Search for books and more in libraries in the U.S. and around the world. Indicates when NYU Libraries holds a copy of a book and shows you nearby libraries with holdings.
• Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 456 billion archived web pages.
• Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window NYU is currently subscribing 14 collections:African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress; Federal Response to Radicalism; Federal Surveillance of African Americans; Feminism in Cuba - 19th through 20th century archival document; Global Missions and Theology; India from Crown Rule to Republic; Testaments to the Holocaust (Documents and Rare Printed Materials from the Wiener Library, London); The Hindu Conspiracy Cases (Activities of the Indian Independence Movement in the U.S., 1908-1933); The Indian Army and Colonial Warfare on the Frontiers of India; The International Women’s Movement (The Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Women’s Association of the USA, 1950-1985); The Middle East Online - Arab-Israeli Relations; The Middle East Online - Iraq; U.S. and Iraqi Relations: U.S. Technical Aid; and, Witchcraft in Europe.

Historical Databases

An advert for P.T. Barnum's "Feejee Mermaid" in 1842 or thereabout. Author: P. T. Barnum or an employee, Source: Newspaper advert commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Barnum_mermai... This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

• America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window ndexes literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes 1,700 journals and also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events, including abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages. Publication dates of coverage: 1964 to present.
• Historical Abstracts with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. Indexes more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages. Publication dates of coverage: 1955 to present.
• Theatre in Context Collection This link opens in a new window O’Dell’s Annals of the New York Stage, the Oxford University Press Companion series, and Greenwood’s American Theatre Companies series are just a few of the many in-copyright sources included in the Theatre in Context Collection. Placed alongside thousands of playbills, posters, photographs, and related theatrical ephemera, users will be able to paint a more comprehensive picture of the life and evolution of dramatic works.
• Shakespeare Collection This link opens in a new window The Shakespeare Collection provides access to general reference data, full-text scholarly periodicals, reprinted criticism, facsimile primary source material and the full-text annotated works from The Arden Shakespeare. Users can view page images of the First Folio, key Quartos, and major editions and adaptations of Shakespeare's works, plus works by Shakespeare's contemporaries and promptbooks from the 17th to the 20th century.
• Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window Contains 1297 sources with 1100 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African-Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.
• Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window Provides full-text and full-image access to hundreds of journals published in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and areas of general popular interest. Each periodical is covered back to its first issue, regardless of when it began publication. International in scope, PAO covers periodicals in a number of Western languages.
• Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window Includes the following collections: African American Newspapers, The Civil War Part I. A Newspaper Perspective, The Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalog, Pennsylvania Newspaper Record, South Carolina Newspapers, and The Liberator. ** Within these collections are papers such as The Charleston Mercury, The Christian Recorder, The Colored American, Douglass Monthly, Frederick, Douglass Paper, Freedom's Journal, Godey's Lady's Book, The Liberator, The National Era, The New York Herald, The North Star, The Pennsylvania Gazette, The Pennsylvania Packet, The Maryland Gazette, Provincial Freeman, Richmond Enquirer, The South Carolina Gazette, The Gazette of the State of South Carolina, The South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, The South Carolina and American General Gazette, Weekly Advocate.
• Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Searchable full text is also available for a subset of the collection.
• Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new window Eighteenth Century Journals brings together rare journals printed between 1685 and 1835, primarily in the British Isles (with some publications from India, the Caribbean, and Europe). Users can view and download page images and search transcribed full text for all journals in the collection.
• C19: The 19th Century Index This link opens in a new window C19: The 19th Century Index provides bibliographic coverage of nineteenth-century books, periodicals, official documents, newspapers and archives from the English-speaking world. This database includes the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals (1824-1900), Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, Palmer's Index to The Times, the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, and more.
• Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974 This link opens in a new window This resource consists of diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. With 150,000 pages of material at completion, this searchable collection is a resource for students and scholars researching this period in American history, culture, and politics.
• African American Archives (via Fold3) This link opens in a new window This full text resource offers access to original documents that reveal a side of the African American story that few have seen before.
• African American Experience This link opens in a new window Full-text digital resource exploring the history and culture of African Americans, as well as the greater Black Diaspora. Features access to full-text content from more than 400 titles, 3,000 slave narratives, over 2000 images, 5,000 primary sources, and 250 vetted Web sites.

Letters & Diaries /Oral Histories

• Oral History Online This link opens in a new window Provides in-depth indexing to more than 2,700 collections of Oral History in English from around the world. The collection provides keyword searching of almost 281,000 pages of full-text by close to 10,000 individuals from all walks of life.
• American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window This database contains 2,009 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs. Includes 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts such as the letters of Amos Wood and his wife and the diary of Maryland Planter William Claytor. The collection also includes biographies, an extensive bibliography of the sources in the database, and material licensed from The Civil War Day-by-Day by E.B. Long.
• British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window Includes 10,000 pages of diaries and letters revealing the experiences of approximately 500 women. The collection now includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new window North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Contains contemporaneous letters, diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives.
• North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.

Gale Primary Sources

• Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window Gale Artemis is a groundbreaking research environment that integrates formerly disparate digital collections to enable innovative research. Gale Artemis provides an unprecedented, seamless research experience that helps students find a starting point, search across a wide array of materials and points in time, and discover new ways to analyze information.

Victorian Popular Culture

• Victorian Popular Culture An essential resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This innovative portal invites users into the darkened halls, small backrooms and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic and spiritualist séances. ** The resource is divided into four self-contained sections: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic

Historical Image Collections

commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Cushman_in_Ha... , The American actress Charlotte Cushman advertised in William Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Washington Theater in 1861.  Author:Washington Theater, SOURCE:Public Library of Congress. this image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

• American Broadsides and Ephemera This link opens in a new window American Broadsides and Ephemera offers fully searchable images of approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900. The remarkably diverse subjects of these broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Featuring many rare items, the pieces of ephemera include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.
• Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window Search or browse the books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the renowned bibliography by Charles Evans.
• Early American Imprints, Series II. Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window Search or browse the books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the distinguished bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker. 1801-1819
• American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Provide digital access to the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1877. Included digitized images of American magazines and journals never before available outside the walls of the American Antiquarian Society. The collection is available in five series: Series 1 (1691-1820) - Series 2 (1821-1837) - Series 3 (1838-1852) - Series 4 (1853-1865) - Series 5 (1866-1877)

Link to Bobst Special Collections

• NYU Special Collections Bobst Library's Special Collections department houses significant archival resources including materials from the Downtown Collection, which documents New York City's downtown arts scene from the 1970s through the early 1990s. Maria Irene Fornés and Richard Foreman are among the many artists whose materials are housed in the Downtown Collection.
• Fales It is especially strong in English literature from the middle of the 18th century to the present, documenting developments in the novel. The Downtown Collection documents the downtown New York art, performance, and literary scenes from 1975 to the present and is extremely rich in archival holdings, including extensive film and video objects.
• Tamiment One of the finest research collections in the country documenting the history of radical politics: socialism, communism, anarchism, utopian experiments, the cultural left, the New Left, and the struggle for civil rights and civil liberties.

Guide to International Collections

• SIBMAS International Directory of Performing Arts Collections and Institutions

Books Containing Primary Source Documents

• The mediaeval stage by Chambers, E. K. (Edmund Kerchever), 1866-1954 Call Number: Online versions avail.
• The Elizabethan stage by Chambers, E. K. (Edmund Kerchever), 1866-1954 Call Number: PN2589 .C4 1965 4 vol. plus online version avail
• The diary of Samuel Pepys by Pepys, Samuel, 1633-1703 Call Number: Avail. online
• A history of theatrical art in ancient and modern times. by Mantzius, Karl, 1860-1921 Call Number: PN2106 .M313 1970 4 vol. also internet access
• Ben Jonson by Ben Jonson Call Number: online access
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What is a primary source?

A primary source can be an article, document, diary, manuscript, object or information written or created at the time an event actually took place. Primary sources serve as an original source of information.

A primary source is a first-hand record of an event or topic created by a participant in or a witness to that event or topic. Primary sources can be a document, letter, eye-witness account, diary, article, book, recording, statistical data, manuscript, or art object. Primary sources vary by discipline and provide an original source of information about an era or event. Although primary sources can include first-hand accounts that were documented later, such as memoirs or oral histories, primary sources created or written closest to the time of the actual event are considered to be the most useful sources for research purposes.

A secondary source is second-hand information written or created after an event. Secondary sources may summarize, interpret, review, or criticize existing events or works.  Secondary sources were written or created after an event by people who were not at the original event. Secondary sources can be many formats including books, articles, encyclopedias, textbooks, or a scholar’s interpretation of past events or conditions.

Examples of Primary Sources and Secondary Sources:

Primary Source:                                                 Secondary Source:

An original painting by Mary Cassatt                   A book about the artist Mary Cassatt

President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address              An article about Abraham Lincoln

A photograph of Harry Houdini                            A website about Houdini's magic tricks

An original Gershwin musical score                     A recent recording of Gershwin songs                             

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Biographical information.

• Biographical Sources
• Searching for Biographical Sources in NUsearch

Biographical resources

• Online resources
• Print resources
• American National Biography This link opens in a new window There is no need to sign in at website to access this resource. Begin searching or browsing for articles. The American National Biography is the premier, authoritative, historical biographical encyclopedia for the United States. Over 18,700 men and women are included, and the resource is updated quarterly with new entries and revisions of previously published entries to enhance their accuracy and currency. Articles are by established scholars. Living individuals are not included.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provides biographies of over 50,000 individuals worldwide who have shaped the history of the British Isles. Access restricted to 3 simultaneous users at a time.
• Gale in Context: Biography This link opens in a new window Gale In Context: Biography is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on the world's most influential people. Biography merges Gale's authoritative reference content with periodicals and multimedia organized into a user-friendly portal experience while allowing users to search for people based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender as well as keyword and full text.
• Current Biography Illustrated This link opens in a new window Current Biography Illustrated contains profiles of individuals living at the time of publication, often at the height of, or even the beginning of, their fame or notoriety. Occasionally a revised biography will be published, and a brief obituary, but published biographies are never revised in light of later events, so a useful source for seeing how individuals were perceived at the time they were active. Illustrations for most individuals are included.
• Chambers Biographical Dictionary International and historical coverage of all areas of human achievement including the arts, science, technology, sport, politics, philosophy and business.
• World Biographical Information System WBIS This link opens in a new window Over 3.6 million short biographical entries for individuals who lived across the world from ancient times to the present. Includes full text images of the original sources, usually older biographical dictionaries. Especially valuable for locating information on hard-to-find individuals from the past.
• Almanac of American Politics Includes profiles of every member of Congress and every governor. It offers in-depth and completely up-to-date narrative profiles of all 50 states and 435 House districts.
• African American Biographical Database This link opens in a new window From July 1, 2023 AABD became a component of ProQuest Black Studies Center. Biographical sketches and essays on African Americans from 1790 to 1950. The Database corresponds to the printed Black Biographical Dictionaries. These sketches have been assembled from biographical dictionaries, yearbooks, directories, histories, personal accounts, and other published sources. The full text of 300 rare books is displayed and searchable in page images, intact with images and illustrations.
• Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography Provides information on the history of science through articles on the professional lives of scientists. Covers all periods of science from classical antiquity to modern times.
• Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analayses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Covers more than 120,000 novelists, essayist, poets, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors. Includes links to: Dictionary of literary biography, Contemporary authors, Contemporary literary criticism, and more.
• Palgrave MacMillan Dictionary of Women’s Biography Biographical information about women: historical, current, and worldwide.

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What is a primary source?

Primary sources provide the raw data you use to support your arguments. Some common types of primary resources include manuscripts, diaries, court cases, maps, data sets, experiment results, news stories, polls, or original research.  In many cases what makes a primary resource is contextual.  For example, a biography about Abraham Lincoln is a secondary resource about Lincoln. However, if examined as a piece of evidence about the nature of biographical writing, or as an example of the biographer's writing method it becomes a primary resource.

What is a secondary source?

Secondary sources analyze primary sources, using primary source materials to answer research questions.  Secondary sources may analyze, criticize, interpret or summarize data from primary sources. The most common secondary resources are books, journal articles, or reviews of the literature. Secondary sources may also be primary sources. For example if someone studies the nature of literary criticism in the 19th century then a literary critique from the 19th century becomes a primary resource.

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Primary Sources - An Introductory Guide

What is a primary source.

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Where are Primary Sources?

Primary sources can be found in many different places, but the most common places to find them are libraries, archives, museums, and in the case of digitized primary sources, online databases.

Libraries carry many primary sources, especially newspapers (often on microfilm or in a database), memoirs, autobiographies, maps, audio and video materials, and published collections of letters, diaries, and interviews. Many of these can be found using the library's catalog. Many library materials can be borrowed.

Archives are collections of materials, often rare or unique, generated or created by individuals or organizations, that are of historical value and which are kept and preserved for the use of current and future communities. Many archives are located within libraries or museums, and are usually dedicated to a particular organization, geographic area, subject, or some combination of these. Materials that are collected by archives are often collections of papers, manuscripts, photographs, maps, drawings, sound or video records, objects, and many other formats, many of which are primary sources.

Museums collect, preserve, and display objects of historical or cultural significance. Primary sources found in museums include artifacts, art, maps, tablets, sound and video recordings, furniture, and realia.

Databases of primary sources often include sigitized or scanned primary sources that are related by subject, time period, or institutions that maintain the original sources. Several primary source databases can be found via the SHU Libraries website.

A primary source is a first-hand or contemporary account of an event or topic.

Primary sources are the most direct evidence of a time or event because they were created by people or things that were there at the time or event. These sources offer original thought and have not been modified by interpretation. Primary sources are original materials, regardless of format.

Examples of Primary Sources

• photographs
• sound and video recordings
• oral histories
• newspaper articles
• journal articles
• research studies
• autobiographies

Primary sources may be transformed from their original format into a newer one, such as when materials are published or digitized, but the contents are still primary. There are many primary sources available online today, but many more are still available in their original format, in archives, museums, libraries, historical sites, and elsewhere.

What is Not a Primary Source?

Secondary sources.

Secondary sources usually use primary sources and offer interpretation, analysis, or commentary. These resources often present primary source information with the addition of hindsight or historical perspective. Common examples include criticisms, histories, and magazine, journal, or newspaper articles written after the fact. Some secondary sources may also be considered primary or tertiary sources - the definition of this term is not set in stone.

Tertiary Sources

Tertiary sources are further developments of secondary sources, often summaries of information found in primary and secondary sources and collecting many sources together. Some examples of tertiary sources are encyclopedias and textbooks. Again, this term is not set in stone - some sources may be both secondary and tertiary.

Additional Primary & Secondary Source Sites

• What Makes A Primary Source A Primary Source - Library of Congress Teaching With The Library of Congress Informational Site.
• Primary Sources: A Research Guide - University of Massachusetts-Boston Description and examples of Primary vs. Secondary Sources
• What Is A Secondary Source? - Harvard University This guide serves as an introductory-level companion to the Harvard University Library Research Guide for the History of Science
• Primary Sources - Society of American Archivists Founded in 1936, the Society of American Archivists is North America's oldest and largest national professional association dedicated to the needs and interests of archives and archivists. SAA represents more than 6,200 professional archivists employed by governments, universities, businesses, libraries, and historical organizations nationally.

Find out more!

There are many good explanations and discussions of primary sources and how to use them. For more information, check out these sites:

Primary sources at Yale: What are primary sources?

ArchivesHub: Using Archives

University of Maryland Guide to Primary Sources

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Definition of Biography

A biography is the non- fiction , written history or account of a person’s life. Biographies are intended to give an objective portrayal of a person, written in the third person. Biographers collect information from the subject (if he/she is available), acquaintances of the subject, or in researching other sources such as reference material, experts, records, diaries, interviews, etc. Most biographers intend to present the life story of a person and establish the context of their story for the reader, whether in terms of history and/or the present day. In turn, the reader can be reasonably assured that the information presented about the biographical subject is as true and authentic as possible.

Biographies can be written about a person at any time, no matter if they are living or dead. However, there are limitations to biography as a literary device. Even if the subject is involved in the biographical process, the biographer is restricted in terms of access to the subject’s thoughts or feelings.

Biographical works typically include details of significant events that shape the life of the subject as well as information about their childhood, education, career, and relationships. Occasionally, a biography is made into another form of art such as a film or dramatic production. The musical production of “Hamilton” is an excellent example of a biographical work that has been turned into one of the most popular musical productions in Broadway history.

Common Examples of Biographical Subjects

Most people assume that the subject of a biography must be a person who is famous in some way. However, that’s not always the case. In general, biographical subjects tend to be interesting people who have pioneered something in their field of expertise or done something extraordinary for humanity. In addition, biographical subjects can be people who have experienced something unusual or heartbreaking, committed terrible acts, or who are especially gifted and/or talented.

As a literary device, biography is important because it allows readers to learn about someone’s story and history. This can be enlightening, inspiring, and meaningful in creating connections. Here are some common examples of biographical subjects:

• political leaders
• entrepreneurs
• historical figures
• serial killers
• notorious people
• political activists
• adventurers/explorers
• religious leaders
• military leaders
• cultural figures

Famous Examples of Biographical Works

The readership for biography tends to be those who enjoy learning about a certain person’s life or overall field related to the person. In addition, some readers enjoy the literary form of biography independent of the subject. Some biographical works become well-known due to either the person’s story or the way the work is written, gaining a readership of people who may not otherwise choose to read biography or are unfamiliar with its form.

Here are some famous examples of biographical works that are familiar to many readers outside of biography fans:

• Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow)
• Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Caroline Fraser)
• Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)
• Churchill: A Life (Martin Gilbert)
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Simon Winchester)
• A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar)
• The Black Rose (Tananarive Due)
• John Adams (David McCullough)
• Into the Wild ( Jon Krakauer )
• John Brown (W.E.B. Du Bois)
• Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (Hayden Herrera)
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
• Shirley Jackson : A Rather Haunted Life ( Ruth Franklin)
• the stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (Michael Finkel)

Difference Between Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir

Biography, autobiography , and memoir are the three main forms used to tell the story of a person’s life. Though there are similarities between these forms, they have distinct differences in terms of the writing, style , and purpose.

A biography is an informational narrative and account of the life history of an individual person, written by someone who is not the subject of the biography. An autobiography is the story of an individual’s life, written by that individual. In general, an autobiography is presented chronologically with a focus on key events in the person’s life. Since the writer is the subject of an autobiography, it’s written in the first person and considered more subjective than objective, like a biography. In addition, autobiographies are often written late in the person’s life to present their life experiences, challenges, achievements, viewpoints, etc., across time.

Memoir refers to a written collection of a person’s significant memories, written by that person. Memoir doesn’t generally include biographical information or chronological events unless it’s relevant to the story being presented. The purpose of memoir is reflection and an intention to share a meaningful story as a means of creating an emotional connection with the reader. Memoirs are often presented in a narrative style that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Examples of Biography in Literature

An important subset of biography is literary biography. A literary biography applies biographical study and form to the lives of artists and writers. This poses some complications for writers of literary biographies in that they must balance the representation of the biographical subject, the artist or writer, as well as aspects of the subject’s literary works. This balance can be difficult to achieve in terms of judicious interpretation of biographical elements within an author’s literary work and consideration of the separate spheres of the artist and their art.

Literary biographies of artists and writers are among some of the most interesting biographical works. These biographies can also be very influential for readers, not only in terms of understanding the artist or writer’s personal story but the context of their work or literature as well. Here are some examples of well-known literary biographies:

Example 1:  Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay  (Nancy Milford)

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn’t shock her. It wasn’t vulgar. ‘So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, . Needle out, piss. Needle in, . Needle out, c. Until we were easy with the words.’

This passage reflects the way in which Milford is able to characterize St. Vincent Millay as a person interacting with her sister. Even avid readers of a writer’s work are often unaware of the artist’s private and personal natures, separate from their literature and art. Milford reflects the balance required on the part of a literary biographer of telling the writer’s life story without undermining or interfering with the meaning and understanding of the literature produced by the writer. Though biographical information can provide some influence and context for a writer’s literary subjects, style, and choices , there is a distinction between the fictional world created by a writer and the writer’s “real” world. However, a literary biographer can illuminate the writer’s story so that the reader of both the biography and the biographical subject’s literature finds greater meaning and significance.

Example 2:  The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens  (Claire Tomalin)

The season of domestic goodwill and festivity must have posed a problem to all good Victorian family men with more than one family to take care of, particularly when there were two lots of children to receive the demonstrations of paternal love.

Tomalin’s literary biography of Charles Dickens reveals the writer’s extramarital relationship with a woman named Nelly Ternan. Tomalin presents the complications that resulted for Dickens from this relationship in terms of his personal and family life as well as his professional writing and literary work. Revealing information such as an extramarital relationship can influence the way a reader may feel about the subject as a person, and in the case of literary biography it can influence the way readers feel about the subject’s literature as well. Artists and writers who are beloved , such as Charles Dickens, are often idealized by their devoted readers and society itself. However, as Tomalin’s biography of Dickens indicates, artists and writers are complicated and as subject to human failings as anyone else.

Example 3:  Virginia Woolf  (Hermione Lee)

‘A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living’: so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don’t stay still, so life-writing can’t be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going ‘ahead of the rest of us, like the miner’s canary, testing the atmosphere , detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions’. So, ‘There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation’. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.

In this passage, Lee is able to demonstrate what her biographical subject, Virginia Woolf, felt about biography and a person telling their own or another person’s story. Literary biographies of well-known writers can be especially difficult to navigate in that both the author and biographical subject are writers, but completely separate and different people. As referenced in this passage by Lee, Woolf was aware of the subtleties and fluidity present in a person’s life which can be difficult to judiciously and effectively relay to a reader on the part of a biographer. In addition, Woolf offers insight into the fact that biographers must make choices in terms of what information is presented to the reader and the context in which it is offered, making them a “miner’s canary” as to how history will view and remember the biographical subject.

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Primary Sources: A Research Guide

• Primary vs. Secondary
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Primary Sources

Texts of laws and other original documents.

Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did.

Speeches, diaries, letters and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote.

Original research.

Datasets, survey data, such as census or economic statistics.

Photographs, video, or audio that capture an event.

Secondary Sources

Secondary Sources are one step removed from primary sources, though they often quote or otherwise use primary sources. They can cover the same topic, but add a layer of interpretation and analysis. Secondary sources can include:

Most books about a topic.

Analysis or interpretation of data.

Scholarly or other articles about a topic, especially by people not directly involved.

Documentaries (though they often include photos or video portions that can be considered primary sources).

When is a Primary Source a Secondary Source?

Whether something is a primary or secondary source often depends upon the topic and its use.

A biology textbook would be considered a secondary source if in the field of biology, since it describes and interprets the science but makes no original contribution to it.

On the other hand, if the topic is science education and the history of textbooks, textbooks could be used a primary sources to look at how they have changed over time.

Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources

Adapted from Bowling Green State University, Library User Education, Primary vs. Secondary Sources .

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That data, which also compared trans women with men, contradicted a broad claim often made by proponents of rules that bar transgender women from competing in women’s sports. It also led the study’s authors to caution against a rush to expand such policies, which already bar transgender athletes from a handful of Olympic sports.

The study’s most important finding, according to one of its authors, Yannis Pitsiladis, a member of the I.O.C.’s medical and scientific commission, was that, given physiological differences, “Trans women are not biological men.”

Alternately praised and criticized, the study added an intriguing data set to an unsettled and often politicized debate that may only grow louder with the Paris Olympics and a U.S. presidential election approaching.

The authors cautioned against the presumption of immutable and disproportionate advantages for transgender female athletes who compete in women’s sports, and they advised against “precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions” that were not based on sport-specific research.

Outright bans, though, continue to proliferate. Twenty-five U.S. states now have laws or regulations barring transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project , a nonprofit that focuses on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender parity. And the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics , the governing body for smaller colleges, this month barred transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports unless their sex was assigned female at birth and they had not undergone hormone therapy.

Two of the most visible sports at this summer’s Paris Games — swimming and track and field — along with cycling have effectively barred transgender female athletes who went through puberty as males. Rugby has instituted a total ban on trans female athletes, citing safety concerns, and those permitted to participate in other sports often face stricter requirements in suppressing their levels of testosterone.

The International Olympic Committee has left eligibility rules for transgender female athletes up to the global federations that govern individual sports. And while the Olympic committee provided financing for the study — as it does on a variety of topics through a research fund — Olympic officials had no input or influence on the results, Dr. Pitsiladis said.

In general, the argument for the bans has been that profound advantages gained from testosterone-fueled male puberty — broader shoulders, bigger hands, longer torsos, and greater muscle mass, strength, bone density and heart and lung capacity — give transgender female athletes an inequitable and largely irreversible competitive edge.

The new laboratory-based, peer-reviewed and I.O.C.-funded study at the University of Brighton, published this month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine , tested 19 cisgender men (those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth) and 12 trans men, along with 23 trans women and 21 cisgender women.

All of the participants played competitive sports or underwent physical training at least three times a week. And all of the trans female athletes had undergone at least a year of treatment suppressing their testosterone levels and taking estrogen supplementation, the researchers said. None of the participants were athletes competing at the national or international level.

The study found that transgender female participants showed greater handgrip strength than cisgender female participants but lower lung function and relative VO2 max, the amount of oxygen used when exercising. Transgender female athletes also scored below cisgender women and men on a jumping test that measured lower-body power.

The study acknowledged some limitations, including its small sample size and the fact that the athletes were not followed over the long term as they transitioned. And, as previous research has indicated, it found that transgender female athletes did retain at least one advantage over cisgender female athletes — a measurement of handgrip strength .

But it is a combination of factors, not a single parameter, that determines athletic performance, said Dr. Pitsiladis, a professor of sport and exercise science.

Athletes who grow taller and heavier after going through puberty as males must “carry this big skeleton with a smaller engine” after transitioning, he said. He cited volleyball as an example, saying that, for transgender female athletes, “the jumping and blocking will not be to the same height as they were doing before. And they may find that, overall, their performance is less good.”

But Michael J. Joyner, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic who studies the physiology of male and female athletes, said that, based on his research and the research of others, science supports the bans in elite sports, where events can be decided by the smallest of margins.

“We know testosterone is performance enhancing,” Dr. Joyner said. “And we know testosterone has residual effects.” Additionally, he added, declines in performance by trans women after taking drugs to suppress their testosterone levels do not fully reduce the typical differences in athletic performance between men and women.

Supporters of transgender athletes, and some scientists who disagree with bans, have accused governing bodies and lawmakers of enacting solutions for a problem that doesn’t exist. There are few elite trans female athletes, they have noted. And there has been limited scientific study of presumed unalterable advantages in strength, power and aerobic capacity gained by experiencing puberty as a male.

For those who have competed in the Olympics, results have varied widely. At the 2021 Tokyo Games, Quinn , a soccer player who is trans nonbinary and was assigned female at birth, helped Canada’s team win a gold medal. But Laurel Hubbard , a transgender weight lifter from New Zealand, failed to complete a lift in her event.

“The idea that trans women are going to take over women’s sports is ludicrous,” said Joanna Harper, a leading researcher of trans athletes and a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon Health & Science University.

Dr. Harper, who is transgender, said it was important for sports to consider physiological differences between transgender women and cisgender women and that she supported certain restrictions, such as requiring the suppression of testosterone levels. But she called blanket bans “unnecessary and unjustified” and said she welcomed the I.O.C.-funded study.

“This fear that trans women aren’t really women, that they’re men who are invading women’s sports, and that trans women will carry all of their male athleticism, their athletic capabilities, into women’s sports — neither of those things are true,” Dr. Harper said.

Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, which governs global track and field, acknowledged that the science remains unresolved. But the organization decided to bar transgender female athletes from international track and field, he said, because “I’m not going to take a risk on this.”

“We think this is in the best interest of preserving the female category,” Mr. Coe said.

In at least two prominent cases, the fight over transgender bans has moved to the courts. The former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas is challenging a ban imposed by World Aquatics, swimming’s global governing body, after she won the 500-yard freestyle race at the 2022 N.C.A.A. championships. That victory made Thomas, who had been among the best men’s swimmers in the Ivy League, the first known trans athlete to win a women’s championship event in college sports’ top division.

Thomas did not dominate all of her races, though, finishing tied for fifth in a second race and eighth in a third. Her winning time in the 500 was more than nine seconds slower than the N.C.A.A. record. Her case, filed at the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, is not expected to be resolved before the Paris Olympics begin in July.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen current and former U.S. college athletes, including at least one who competed against Thomas, sued the N.C.A.A. last month . They claimed that, by letting Thomas participate in the national championships, the organization had violated their rights under Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funding. (Title IX has also been relied upon to argue in favor of transgender female athletes.)

Outsports , a website that reports on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, hailed the I.O.C.-funded study as a “landmark” that concluded that “blanket sports bans are a mistake.” But some scientists and athletes called the study deeply flawed in an article in The Telegraph , which labeled the suggestion that transgender women are at a disadvantage in sports a “new low” for the I.O.C.

So heated is the debate that Dr. Pitsiladis said he and his research team have received threats. That, he warned, could lead other scientists to shy away from pursuing research on the topic.

“Why would any scientist do this if you’re going to get totally slammed and character-assassinated?” he said. “This is no longer a science matter. Unfortunately, it’s become a political matter.”

Jeré Longman covers international sports, focusing on competitive, social, cultural and political issues around the world. More about Jeré Longman

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What Is Biomedical Engineering? Impact and More

If you’re looking for a profession that uses engineering to make a positive impact on others’ lives, consider a career in biomedical engineering. Read on to learn more about this exciting field.

Biomedical engineers have designed some of the most critical medical devices used today, from pulse-regulating pacemakers to easy-to-use blood glucose monitors. 

Whether you’re interested in joining the field because you want to save lives or simply because you’re fascinated by the challenging problems it faces, a biomedical engineering career offers the opportunity to make a real impact in the world. 

In this article, you’ll learn more about biomedical engineering, what biomedical engineers do, and their salary and job outlook. You’ll also learn how to become one and find some suggested courses to get started.

Biomedical engineering explained

Biomedical engineering is the application of engineering principles to solve health and health care problems. Biomedical engineers design medical equipment and processes that improve human health outcomes using their engineering, virology, and health care knowledge. Examples of biomedical equipment used daily include pacemakers, blood glucose monitors, and artificial limbs.

Bioengineering vs. biomedical engineering

Although they sound similar and share much in common, biomedical engineering differs from bioengineering. 

In simplest terms, bioengineering refers to the general application of engineering practices to biological systems, such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and health care. Biomedical engineering , meanwhile, is a specialized subset of bioengineering strictly focused on applying engineering practices for health care purposes by designing medical devices and developing processes to improve health outcomes. 

What do biomedical engineers do? 

Biomedical engineers use their engineering knowledge to create medical devices, equipment, and processes to heal, treat, or improve health conditions. While the duties a biomedical engineer performs daily vary from project to project, some of the most common responsibilities include: 

Designing medical devices, such as pacemakers or artificial limbs 

Repairing and installing medical devices and equipment 

Conducting original research into existing biomedical devices and biological processes 

Training medical professionals to use new medical equipment 

A brief history of pacemakers

Although the use of electricity to restart hearts had been observed sporadically by medical professionals and researchers for hundreds of years, the first artificial pacemakers were not invented until the late 1920s and early 1930s. 

In 1928, Australian anesthesiologist Mark Lidwell used intermittent electrical stimulation to restart a child’s heart born in cardiac arrest. Later, in 1932, the American Physiologist Albert Hyman developed a spring-wound hand-cranked motor that used electrical impulses to restart hearts. He called his device an “artificial pacemaker,” a term still used to this day. 

Unfortunately, Hyman’s device was not welcomed by the medical community, which viewed it simply as a “gadget” rather than a serious medical tool.  

The early 1950s saw the rise of large, external pacemakers that needed to be plugged into wall sockets and wheeled around on racks to be transported. By 1957, however, the first battery-operated, wearable pacemaker was invented by Earl E. Bakken. Many experts regard the invention as starting the field of “medical electronics,” a precursor to modern biomedical engineering. 

Just one year later, in 1958, Ake Senning and Rune Elmqvist in Sweden developed the first implantable pacemaker in Sweden. Fitting for such a device, the pacemaker was implanted in a 43-year-old engineer named Arne Larsson [ 1 ]. 

From ridiculed fringe science to mainstream medical marvel, the pacemaker has gone through many iterations over the decades—and saved countless lives. All thanks to early biomedical engineers. 

Biomedical engineering: salary and job outlook

Biomedical engineers' unique skill set means that they are well-compensated and much sought after. Here, you’ll learn more about what they earn and their job outlook for the foreseeable future. 

According to Job Bank Canada, a biomedical engineer earns an average hourly wage of $44. However, this can fluctuate significantly by experience level and location, with the national low being $24 per hour in Ontario and the highest being $96.02 in New Brunswick [ 2 ].

Job outlook

Canada Job Bank lists a “Good” to “Very Good” job outlook for biomedical engineers through 2025 in six provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The remaining provinces and territories are “Undetermined” [ 3 ].

How to get started in biomedical engineering 

Biomedical engineers use their engineering knowledge to solve biological and medical problems. Here's how to enter this career field. 

1. Obtain a degree. 

To become a biomedical engineer, you need a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering, bioengineering, biomedical science, or a related field, such as mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. Sometimes, an employer might prefer or even require applicants to possess a master's degree in biomedical engineering or a related field.

2. Gain the right skills.

Daily, you'll use various technical and human skills to solve some of the most important medical problems. Here are some of the skills biomedical engineers use in their day-to-day work: 

Engineering 

Statistics 

Computer science 

Collaboration 

Problem-solving 

As you’re looking to start your career, consider the skills you might want to develop to ensure you do the best job possible. 

3. Get experience.

One of the best ways to gain a foothold in a new career is to gain relevant work experience. If you’re just starting, consider obtaining a relevant internship or entry-level position to practice your skills in the real world. 

Explore engineering and health care. 

You'll need to develop unique skills and knowledge to join the ranks of professional biomedical engineers at the forefront of science and technology to solve some of the most complex health care problems. 

Deeplearning.Ai’s AI for Medicine Specialization equips course takers with practical experience in applying machine learning to medical problems, such as diagnosing diseases and predicting survival rates.

The Systems Biology and Biotechnology Specialization from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai covers the concepts and methodologies used in systems-level analysis of biomedical systems.

Article sources

NIH. " A brief history of cardiac pacing , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232561/." Accessed April 24, 2024. 

Canada Job Bank. " Biomedical Engineer: Prevailing wages in Canada , https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/wages-occupation/5415/ca." Accessed April 24, 2024. 

Canada Job Bank. " Biomedical Engineer: Prospects in Canada , https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/outlook-occupation/5415/ca." Accessed April 24, 2024.

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Coursera staff.

Editorial Team

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This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

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Breaking news, ‘the nanny’ and ‘romancing the stone’ actor zack norman dead at 83.

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Zack Norman, the actor best known for playing Danny DeVito’s sidekick in “Romancing the Stone,” died Sunday in Burbank, Calif., of natural causes.

Norman’s daughter, Lori Zuker Briller, paid tribute to her father in a Facebook post.

“Wherever you drifted off to, I know everything just got livelier,” she wrote. “You were the most enigmatic person wherever you went. The best father, husband, grandfather and friend, you brought so many laughs and so much enrichment to all of our lives.”

Born Howard Jerrold Zuker in Boston, Mass., Norman was a renaissance man, having been a musician, comedian, actor, producer and art collector over the course of a six-decade-long career. 

After appearing in off-Broadway plays during the 1960s, and then forging a successful career as a touring stand-up comic, he segued into films — especially those of director Henry Jaglom, such as “Tracks” (1977), “Sitting Ducks” (1980) and “Babyfever.” 

Most famously, he played antiques dealer Cousin Ira in Robert Zemeckis’ “Romancing the Stone,” with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, and Harry in 1990’s “Cadillac Man,” with Robin Williams and Fran Drescher.

Several years later, Norman guest starred three times on Drescher’s popular sit-com “The Nanny.” He also appeared on episodes of “The A-Team” and “Baywatch.”

As a producer and financier, Norman worked on “Hearts and Minds,” the 1974 film that won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, which was a personal highlight of his lengthy and varied resume.

“My most proud movie was 1975’s Academy Award [winner] for the Best Documentary called ‘Hearts and Minds’, which is really very, very, very important and part of the reason that the Vietnam War was stopped,” he told the “Not Real Art” podcast in January 2023. “What a life.” 

In the 1970s, Norman also developed a passion for art. His collection includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

Norman is survived by his wife, Nancy; sister Jane; daughters Lori and Tracy; sons Stephen and Michael; and grandchildren Sascha, Addison, Benjamin, Henry, Liliana, Jonathan, Justin, Jayden, Jackie, Gabrielle, Rachel, Susie, Joseph and Seth.

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