Communication Studies, Summer 2024: Types of Sources

Primary Sources: Primary sources are the raw stuff of history. Examples of primary sources:

• diaries and journals
• documents,
• newspaper or magazine articles,
• statistics,
• novels, plays, or poetry
• reports, autobiographies, memoirs, or books written during the time of an event

Some Primary Sources maybe be considered popular sources, but they are of the time that you are researching.

Secondary Sources: Primary sources are the raw stuff of history. Examples of primary sources:

These are the peer reviewed articles and scholarly books that historians write after they have worked with the primary sources -- and consulted other secondary articles or books.

Tertiary Sources: 

These are sources that index, abstract, organize, or compile other sources.

Some reference materials and textbooks are considered tertiary sources when their purpose is to list or summarize information. Tertiary sources are usually not credited to a particular author.

• Finding tools like databases which aggregate primary and secondary sources
• Dictionaries/encyclopedias (may also be secondary)
• Almanacs, fact books, Wikipedia, bibliographies (may also be secondary)
• Directories, guidebooks, manuals, handbooks, and textbooks (may be secondary)
• Indexing and abstracting sources