[WikiEN-l] Secondary sources

[Andrew Turvey]

Not quite. The first publication can be a secondary source, for instance if the New York Times publishes an article on a car accident. A primary source is something like a census return or, in this case, a witness statement. 

The difference is that you have someone in between the source - the journalist in this case - sifting, analysing, compiling and interpreting the primary sources. 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PSTS for more details. 

----- "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote: 
> From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com> 
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org> 
> Sent: Monday, 24 August, 2009 07:48:11 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal 
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BB... 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 11:13 AM, <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote: 
> > Steve, news articles *in general* are primary sources. 
> > 
> > Here is how you can tell: Is what I'm reading the first time someone has 
> > published what I'm reading? 
> > 
> > "So and so was hit by a car today" -- primary source, first time published. 
> 
> Oh, for some reason I thought primary source meant the subject 
> themself had published it. Like a blog, autobiography, etc. I was just 
> confused. 
> 
> 
> Steve 
> 
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