Primary & Secondary Sources

Which of the following is not considered a primary source?

• a diary entry

• a biography

• a letter

• a photograph

Which of the following is not considered a secondary source?

• an encyclopedia entry

• a textbook

• a magazine article

• an interview

A primary source is created by someone who

• read about an event.

• made up an event from their imagination.

• was present at an event.

• heard about an event from a witness.

The lyric “We know what it was like for Jane / ’Cause her interpretation comes from her brain” most likely describes a ________ source.

• primary

• secondary

Which of these is a secondary source?

• I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

• John Adams by David McCullough

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

Which of these is a primary source?

• a rap song about Harriet Tubman

• a photograph of Harriet Tubman

• an essay about Harriet Tubman

• a documentary film about Harriet Tubman

Which type of source can include the author’s personal opinions or bias?

• primary sources

• secondary sources

• both

• neither

True or False: Secondary sources often draw from one or more primary sources.

• True

• False

Read the following excerpt from Vincent van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan.

Every Sunday on his way to church, young Vincent would pass the headstone carved with the name he shared. Did he feel as if his dead brother were the rightful Vincent, the one who would remain perfect in his parents' hearts, and that he was merely an unsatisfactory replacement? That might have been one of the reasons he spent so much of his life feeling like a lonely outsider, as if he didn't fit anywhere in the world.

Which kind of source does this passage represent?

• primary

• secondary

Read the following excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.”

How could you use this passage in your research?

• as a primary source that describes slavery from Douglass’s perspective

• as a primary source that describes slavery from the perspective of Douglass’s owner

• as a secondary source that analyzes the history of slavery in Maryland