[WikiEN-l] Secondary sources

[David Goodman]

Wikipedia is not the same as the academic world.

 From the point of view of an historian analyzing sources, a newspaper
is considered a primary source, and you will find them so classified
in any manual on doing research in history or any listing of sources
at the end of an historical book or article.   From the POV of
Wikipedia, we've been considering it a secondary source, which is the
way most people think of it.

what we call primary sources: is the archival material that an
historian also calls primary sources, but normally lists separately in
a bibliography.   if the reporter's notebooks are preserved, that's
also a primary source. The analysis of the differences between the
primary sources in attempting to reconstruct what happened is what
historians do. The articles & monographs other historians  publish
giving their analysis is what they consider the secondary sources.

Similarly, in science, the actual archival primary sources are, in a
sense, the lab notebooks--and they are preserved as such, for patents
and the like. But a primary scientific paper is the one reporting  the
work, and a secondary paper is a review.

The Wikipedia definition is a term of art at Wikipedia, used because
we need some way of differentiating between material which is edited,
and that which is not. The primary sources are the unedited reports.
As a newspaper is edited, its a secondary source.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 6:30 PM, <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:
> Sure a manuscript is an unpublished primary source, or an ancient book
> only held in 12 libraries.
> However if that item is published that does not create a secondary
> source.
> And if that item includes interviews with other people, that does not
> make it a secondary source.
>
> A primary source is merely the first time a given situation is made to
> exist.  Even if King Yog took notes before his interview with me, and
> had them typed up and collated by someone else and then read them to
> me, and I copied them out and published them, I'm not creating a
> teritary source out of all that.
>
> Everything that comes before primary is merely part of the process of
> creating a source.  Just because there are levels and layers of
> information doesn't push the source into being secondary or teritiary.
> The notes are primary, the typed version is primary, the manuscript is
> primary, and the final published version is all still primary.  I think
> I wrote a monograph on this a while ago when someone asked me if a
> school transcript is a secondary source (it's not) their reasoning was
> that it's built from various "primary sources" which are the grading
> worksheets from various teachers.
>
> However my reasoning is that all of the preparation is merely the
> necessary steps to create the source.
>
> It's instructive to consider whether making images available online of
> a primary source creates a secondary source.  How about making minor
> editing corrections?  At what level of modification of a primary
> source, do you create a secondary source?  Formatting a film for TV
> size doesn't suddenly turn the film from primary to secondary.
>
> W.J.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Turvey <andrewrturvey at googlemail.com>
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 11:16 am
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Are we talking at cross purposes here?
>
> "Primary sources", "secondary sources" and "tertiary sources" are
> phrases that
> are regularly used by historians and other academics whose use
> considerable
> pre-date Wikipedia.
>
> Unpublished primary sources are regularly used in academic research.
>
> ----- WJhonson at aol.com wrote:
>> From: WJhonson at aol.com
>> To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Sent: Tuesday, 25 August, 2009 19:01:49 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain,
> Ireland,
> Portugal
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources
>>
>> In a message dated 8/25/2009 6:50:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>> andrewrturvey at googlemail.com writes:
>>
>>
>> > 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. >>
>> >
>> ------------------------
>>
>> That is not correct Andrew. Each "source" must be published.
> Typically
>> witness statements are not themselves published. You are confusing
> first-hand
>> experience with primary source. A primary souce, even a census return
> is
>> not first-hand, it's merely first publication.
>>
>> If you took you example to extreme, then there would be no primary
> sources
>> at all.
>>
>> W.J.
>>
>>
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