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History vocabulary · Sources and Archives

Secondary source

Meaning in history, with examples

/ˌsekəndəri ˈsɔːs/nounCore term

In history, secondary source means: A work that discusses or interprets the past using other evidence and was written after the events, such as a history book, journal article or biography.

In Turkish: ikincil kaynak, araştırma eseri

How it is used

Students read secondary sources to understand a debate before turning to primary material, and a literature review surveys them. Lecturers often warn against relying only on secondary sources or on general websites.

Example sentences

  1. Start with two or three recent secondary sources to see where the debate stands.

  2. The secondary sources give very different figures for the size of the army.

Common collocations

  • consult secondary sources
  • recent secondary sources
  • rely on secondary sources
  • secondary literature
  • primary sourceEvidence created at the time being studied or by people who witnessed it, such as letters, diaries, official records, photographs or objects.
  • historiographyThe writing of history, and especially the study of how historians have written about a subject over time, which sources they used and how their views changed.
  • interpretationA particular explanation of what past events meant or why they happened, based on the evidence and on the historian's questions and point of view.
  • biasA one-sided view that makes a source or a writer favour one person, group or explanation, so that the account is not fully balanced or complete.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Sources and Archives

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