3.6 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary source | 2/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_source | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:22:41.737889+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Humanities and history === Secondary sources in history and humanities are usually books or scholarly journals, from the perspective of a later interpreter, especially by a later scholar. In the humanities, a peer reviewed article is always a secondary source. The delineation of sources as primary and secondary first arose in the field of historiography, as historians attempted to identify and classify the sources of historical writing. In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine the independence and reliability of sources. In original scholarly writing, historians rely on primary sources, read in the context of the scholarly interpretations. Following the Rankean model established by German scholarship in the 19th century, historians use archives of primary sources. Most undergraduate research projects rely on secondary source material, with perhaps snippets of primary sources.
==== Law ==== In the legal field, source classification is important because the persuasiveness of a source usually depends upon its history. Primary sources may include cases, constitutions, statutes, administrative regulations, and other sources of binding legal authority, while secondary legal sources may include books, the headnotes of case reports, articles, and encyclopedias. Legal writers usually prefer to cite primary sources because only primary sources are authoritative and precedential, while secondary sources are only persuasive at best.
==== Family history ==== "A secondary source is a record or statement of an event or circumstance made by a non-eyewitness or by someone not closely connected with the event or circumstances, recorded or stated verbally either at or sometime after the event, or by an eye-witness at a time after the event when the fallibility of memory is an important factor." Consequently, according to this definition, a first-hand account written long after the event "when the fallibility of memory is an important factor" is a secondary source, even though it may be the first published description of that event.
==== Autobiographies ==== An autobiography or a memoir can be a secondary source in history or the humanities when used for information about topics other than its subject. For example, many first-hand accounts of events in World War I written in the post-war years were influenced by the then prevailing perception of the war, which was significantly different from contemporary opinion.
== See also == Original research Source criticism
== References ==
== Further reading == Jules R. Benjamin, A Student's Guide to History (2013) ISBN 9781457621444 Edward H. Carr, What is History? (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001) ISBN 9780333977019 Wood Gray, Historian's handbook, a key to the study and writing of history (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1991, ©1964) ISBN 9780881336269 Derek Harland, A Basic Course in Genealogy: Volume two, Research Procedure and Evaluation of Evidence (Bookcraft Inc, 1958) WorldCat record Richard Holmes, Tommy (HarperCollins, 2004) ISBN 9780007137510 Martha C. Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (2001) ISBN 9780801435737 Richard A. Marius and Melvin E. Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History (8th Edition) (2012) ISBN 9780205118601 Hayden White, Metahistory: the historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) ISBN 9780801814693
== External links ==