COTC: Primary Resources

What is a Primary Source?

Primary sources may be letters, manuscripts, diaries or memoirs, newspapers, government documents and laws, court rulings, clothing, pottery, art, human remains, recorded sound or other items that offer original evidence of a civilization, a person or group of people, societies and cultures, or a place.  

These sources may provide a foundation to interpret and understand the past within a given frame of time.  The sources are used in conjunction with previous scholarly studies or secondary sources.  Since a single primary source represents only one piece of evidence, consulting various sources when possible is necessary in an attempt to understand different perspectives or phenomenon.

What do I search?

Limit a subject or word search with the following words:  
sources, archives, correspondence, diaries, personal narratives, interviews, church records and registers, early works to 1800, wills, probate records, sermons

   United States – Foreign Relations – Germany – Sources
   Witchcraft -- Europe -- History – Sources
   Slavery -- United States -- Personal Narratives
  
Sample Keyword search:
   Napoleon* and revolution and "personal narratives"
   Slavery and South Carolina and sources
   Kosovo and interviews
   "race relations" and sermons
   "american civil liberties union" and archives
    catholic* and england and "church records"

Using an * finds Napoleon or Napoleonic etc.
Using quote marks searches for a phrase

Author Search
Do an a search of a known person to look for a memoir, autobiography, or historical texts such as writings of an ancient author  (eg. Herodotus)