English

A primary source is an original artifact or first-hand account of an event or time that has not yet been interpreted, analyzed, or evaluated by another person. 

Examples of primary sources include:

• diaries, journals, letters, interviews, speeches, memos, manuscripts and other first-person accounts 
• memoirs and autobiographies
• official records such as government publications, census data, court reports, police records
• minutes, reports, correspondence of an organization or agency
• newspaper and magazine articles written during the time of the event
• photographs, paintings, film and television programs, audio recordings which document an event
• research such as opinion polls which document attitudes and thought during the time of an event

To identify these resources in OneSearch, enter the specific type of primary document you are looking for plus your topic. Quotation marks will search your terms as a phrase. The asterisk * will search for alternate endings to a word.  Examples:

letters AND Jane Austen 

"personal narratives" AND Los Angeles riots

speech* AND American presidents

A secondary source is a work that interprets or analyzes an artifact or event. It is generally one step removed from the event or artifact, and it can be recorded or created anytime from days to centuries after the original item's creation date. Secondary sources analyze, critique, report, summarize, interpret, or restructure the original creation. They can also be based on a reading of other secondary sources or a combination of primary and secondary sources (for instance, a poetry anthology that also contains critical essays about the poems). 

Examples of secondary sources: 

• textbooks and most scholarly books
• encyclopedias, bibliographies, reference books
• literary criticism
• reviews of books, plays, movies, art
• magazine articles
• journal articles that are not primary reports of new research

To identify these resources in OneSearch, enter the specific type of secondary source you are looking for plus your topic. Quotation marks will search your terms as a phrase. The asterisk * will search for alternate endings to a word. 

Examples: 

reference AND "gothic literature"

criticism AND feminist poetry