I don't equate "second hand witness" to secondary source.
A primary source is the first source we have that describes a certain
event.
"Matilda was baptised in the Church of St Mary last Easter" is a
primary source if the author isn't merely parroting some other known
source. The author doesn't need to be an eye-witness and in fact can
be parroting some earlier now-lost source and *still* be a primary
source.
Do you agree with that last statement?
The first source we know about, that we still have, is a primary
source, no matter how the information came to the writer.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 7:52 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources
Yes, chronicles are accepted as primary sources, because there is
nothing further back from them--they serve essentially the same
function as newspapers. Obviously, they have to be used with a good
deal of interpretation,just as newspapers. I don't believe everything
in a newspaper happened just as they describe it either. However, the
ASC, as many other chronicles, also serve as secondary sources,
commenting on the events they describe: for example, the famous
analysis of K. William I at 1087 is a secondary evaluation, more of
less like a modern editorial in a newspaper, which is a secondary
source,
David Goodman, Ph.D, M
.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 10:24 PM, <wjhonson(a)aol.com> wrote:
I disagree that editing turns a primary source into a
secondary
source.
And I disagree that we make that distinction
in-project.
I also disagree that newspaper articles are secondary sources.
Some are, some aren't.
Is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a primary source? Yes. Do you believe
that every event there described is being described by an eye-witness?
No. In fact it's possibly doubtful whether any of it is eye-witness
testimony. Being an eye-witness is not what makes an article primary
or secondary.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 3:42 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources
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 sources20in 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(a)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
0Ato
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.
=0
A>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Origi
nal Message-----
From: Andrew
Turvey <andrewrturvey(a)googlemail.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)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(a)aol.com wrote:
>> From: WJhonson(a)aol.com
>> To: wikien-l(a)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(a)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 ce
nsus
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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>
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