A primary resource is a research tool that is directly related to the topic being studied. History, archeology, and sociology are among the fields that use primary resources and distinguish them from secondary or tertiary resources. The primary resource is the gold standard for many types of research because it provides information that is unfiltered by other people’s opinions.
Primary resources in history are materials from the time period being studied. Letters, diaries, and works of art are examples. In contrast to secondary resources such as scholarly criticism of works of art from that period, these resources are valuable because they allow historians to study materials as they appeared at the time. Historians can learn more about how people in the time period under study thought, worked, and processed the world around them by using primary sources.
In archeology, artifacts, as well as discussions about them, can be valuable primary resource material. Archaeologists can study artifacts and read contemporaneous writings about them to learn more about how they fit into society. Documents from people who came into contact with those artifacts at different times can provide additional information about when and how damage occurred, as well as how other cultures’ artifacts were received and examined.
A primary resource can be a person, such as a witness to an event or the subject of an autobiography. People’s testimony in the form of diaries, letters, recorded interviews, and other materials can be useful for contextualizing events and gathering information from people who have firsthand experience with them. Original scientific studies, such as demographic analysis, epidemiology studies on various populations, and other types of studies, can also be considered primary resources.
It can be difficult to gain access to a primary resource. Original documents and works of art are frequently fragile as well as valuable, and they are safeguarded. It helps to have academic credentials and established relationships with curators, professors, and librarians if people need to travel to libraries and archives to access material for research.
In some cases, secondary resources are also useful. Many have extensive resource lists indicating where they collected information, so they can sometimes serve as a starting point for people attempting to conduct original research. Reading an analysis of a subject under study can also provide people with new perspectives on the subject as well as ideas for their research. People who use such sources should use caution and treat them with skepticism, as the people who created them filter the information and inevitably slant the presentation.