BK Writing Lab

 

A primary source is an authoritative and influential text that offers a more or less "immediate" account of an event, idea, or thing. 

Examples:

The Book of Job

Summa Theologica

The Gettysburg Address

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Moby-Dick

Humani Generis

"Song of Myself"

Walden

Beowulf

"The Yellow Wallpaper"

 

A secondary source is typically found in a book, academic journal, or internet source. Often secondary sources are commenting on (or addressing) primary sources. Sometimes a secondary source becomes so influential that it effectively turns into a primary source.

Examples:

"Voltaire and the Book of Job"

"Aquinas on Attachment, Envy, and Hatred in the Summa Theologica"

"The Gettysburg Address: An Exercise in Presidential Legitimation" 

"The Jeweled Trees: Alterity in Gilgamesh"

"Moby-Dick and American Political Symbolism"

"Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: Defending the Faith from Pascendi dominici gregis to Humani Generis"

""Song of Myself" as Inverted Mystical Experience"

"Walden: Climbing the Canon"

"Tolkien's Technique of Translation in his Prose Beowulf: Literalism and Literariness"

"Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in "The Yellow Wallpaper""

 

In conclusion, let us look briefly at how primary and secondary sources are part of a research paper. Typically a research paper will address a primary source (e.g. The Great Gatsby) in addition to research articles on the novel (in other words, secondary sources). Most teachers will require your secondary sources to be scholarly sources.

 

 

If you have any questions, send us an email at bkwritinglab@bishopkennyhs.org!

 

Image Credit: Source by Priyanka from the Noun Project