Guide to Primary Sources  

If your class assignment requires the use of primary sources, make sure you understand what kinds of primary sources the professor expects you to use, and if published versions or reproductions are ok to use if you don’t have access to original primary sources on your topic.

 Once you know the kinds of primary sources you need, then consider the topic you are studying to determine where you should look for primary sources. For example, if your topic is on some aspect of California or United States history, the University Library’s Special Collections department may have original primary sources you can use. But if your research is on a different topic, you will need to find reproductions of primary sources in publications or on the web because the University Library’s original primary sources are limited to the Special Collections department and its primary focus on California and American topics.

Primary sources are original documents, images, artifacts, or data that provide direct evidence about people, places, events,or phenomena. Primary sources offer first-hand descriptions, eyewitness accounts, or direct evidence of a given subject. They provide valuable information that scholars interpret when they write secondary sources such books and articles. Specific examples of primary sources can vary among different disciplines. In the Humanities and Social Sciences, primary sources tend to be documents such as letters or reports. In the Sciences, primary sources tend to be data such as the results of an experiment.

Primary Source Examples by Discipline

History

Letters

Diaries

Photographs

Drawings

Records of organizations (annual reports, meeting minutes)

Political Science

Government reports

Census records

Court records

Birth certificates

Sociology

Interviews

Video from studies of human behavior

Anthropology

Artifacts

Ruins

Psychology

Interviews

Data from psychological observations and experiments