1 The study of past

Primary sources refer to documents or other items that provide first-hand, eyewitness accounts of events. For example, if you are studying the civil rights movement, a newspaper article published the day after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march and a memoir written by someone who participated in the march would both be considered primary sources.

Historians use primary sources as the raw evidence to analyze and interpret the past. They publish secondary sources - often scholarly articles or books - that explain their interpretation. When you write a historical research paper, you are creating a secondary source based on your own analysis of primary source material.

Examples of primary sources include diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, photographs, videos, public opinion polls, and government records, among many other things.