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This wall painting found in the Roman city of Pompeii is an example of a primary source about people in Pompeii in Roman times (portrait of Terentius Neo).. In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time ...
Sources of information are commonly categorized as primary, secondary, or tertiary sources.In brief, a primary source is one close to the event with firsthand knowledge (for example, an eyewitness); a secondary source is at least one step removed (for example, a book about an event written by someone not involved in it); and a tertiary source is an encyclopaedia or textbook that provides a ...
The concept of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources originated with the academic discipline of historiography. The point was to give historians a handy way to indicate how close the source of a piece of information was to the actual events. [a] Importantly, the concept developed to deal with "events", rather than ideas or abstract concepts.
In some academic disciplines, the differentiation between a secondary and tertiary source is relative. [1] [3] In the United Nations International Scientific Information System (UNISIST) model, a secondary source is a bibliography, whereas a tertiary source is a synthesis of primary sources. [5]
In scholarship, a secondary source [4] [5] is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source is one that gives information about a primary source. In a secondary source, the original information is selected, modified and arranged in a suitable format.
Sources that are reliable for some material are not reliable for other material. For instance, otherwise unreliable self-published sources are usually acceptable to support uncontroversial information about the source's author. You should always try to use the best possible source, particularly when writing about living people.
Journalistic and academic sources are preferable, however, and e-commerce links should be replaced with reliable non-commercial sources if available. Rankings proposed by vendors (such as bestseller lists at Amazon) usually have at least one of the following problems: It may be impossible to provide a stable source for the alleged ranking.
A third-party source from one article may be treated as an auxiliary source in another, because the focus has changed. [6] Generally, any source that does not qualify as a reliable third-party source is grouped in this category. The use of these raw, first-hand, or out-of-date sources lends itself to inaccurate reporting, undue weight, and ...