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What is the difference between primary and secondary sources?

Last Updated: Jan 15, 2019 Views: 120 0 0 Topics: Research Sources

Primary sources are sources that come from firsthand witnesses of an event.  Primary sources can be from the specific time period (a journal from a World War II soldier, for example) or from a firsthand witness after the fact (a veteran’s memoir of his experiences in World War II, written after the war).

Secondary sources are sources that explain or analyze an event or a secondary source.  An example of a secondary source would be a book about soldiers’ general experiences during World War II.

For more information, visit http://libguides.bgsu.edu/c.php?g=227153&p=1505675.