Beginning to Investigate Primary Sources

Analyzing primary sources requires you to ask questions about the sources themselves. Identifying and contextualizing the document or object, such as an advertisement, a news article, photograph, memoir, oral history, painting, or letter, allows the researcher to better understand the event or time period that they are exploring.  You should also think about whether you are looking at an original copy of a physical source or if you are accessing a scan or photograph of an original source online. Both physical and digital formats allow you to examine the primary source, but may offer slightly different information. You might be reading the text of a primary source that has been transcribed, retyped, or even translated from its original format, and later printed in a book or included in an online database. When primary sources are reformatted, we often lose clues about the larger context of the materials, while focusing on other details in our analysis. Next, thoroughly reading and examining the intellectual content, or meaning, of the source is key in your investigation. What does the source show or represent? How is it relevant to your research topic? Does it help answer a research question, offer new insight, support an argument, or contradict your existing knowledge? Sources you use in your writing should connect to your research questions.

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