Historical sources

• Primary and secondary sources

Primary sources

• Why use primary sources?
• Where can I find primary sources?
• Collections of primary sources
• Evaluating primary sources

Secondary sources

• Why use secondary sources?
• What are secondary sources?
• Evaluating secondary sources

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This guide will familiarise you with resources particularly useful to historical research.

Historical research involves using primary and secondary sources.

In essence, primary sources are the original document, object or data that you are investigating.  Secondary sources are the interpretation, analysis or commentary about a primary source.  

Watch this 3 minute video to learn more about primary and secondary sources and how your research question shapes these definitions. 

Primary vs. secondary sources from Information Literacy by Elsa Loftis

This chart shows some examples of the distinction between primary and secondary sources:

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Types of historical primary resources you might explore include: 

• Personal diaries and autobiographies;
• Manuscripts and original creative works;
• Ephemera such as posters, pamphlets;
• Archival collections such as the UWA Special Collections;
• Historical newspapers, journals, and books;
• Audio-visual collections, historical photos, film footage, paintings, and architecture;
• The collections of national and state libraries, museums, and art galleries. 

See this list of where you can find primary sources and often also secondary sources related to them.