LibGuides: ENG 3310: Advanced Writing: Primary Sources

Primary Source Overview

A primary source is a record of a person, event, or occurrence created by an eyewitness or a participant's version of an event. Primary sources allow researchers to gain better insight into historical figures and events.
Primary sources emphasize the lack of intermediaries between the things or events being studied and reports of those things or events based on the belief that firsthand accounts are more accurate.
Examples of primary sources include diaries, letters, notes from lab experiments, research data, photographs, blogs, e-mails, maps, scrapbooks, Facebook pages, poetry, artwork, birthday cards, office records, and artifacts.

JSTOR
JSTOR offers journals, ebooks, and primary source collections, allowing researchers to retrieve high-resolution scanned images as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. The resources archived in JSTOR span many disciplines.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Comprising more than 9 million items that document U.S. history and culture, the site is organized into more than 100 thematic collections based on their original format, their subject matter, or who first created, assembled, or donated them to the Library. LC's Digital Collections provides free and open access to manuscripts, prints, photographs, posters, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, books, pamphlets, and sheet music. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually (including full-text searching for many written items), or searched across multiple collections.
National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records.
Literature Resource Center (Gale)
Literature Resource Center is an online literature database offering literature criticism, biographies of authors, multimedia resources (websites, podcasts, audio files) plot summaries and other topics, book reviews, and primary sources about the literature searched for.