Gottschalk, Louis : Understanding History.
A Primer of Historical Method. First Edition. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf; 1950, pp. 53-54
A primary source is the testimony of an eyewitness,
or of a witness by any other of the senses, or of a mechanical device like
the dictaphone—that is, of one who or that which was present at the events
of which he or it tells (hereafter called simply eyewitness).
A secondary source is the testimony of anyone who
is not an eyewitness—that is, of one who was not present at the events
of which he tells.
A primary source must thus have been produced by a contemporary of the
events it narrates. It does not, however, need to be original in
the legal sense of the work original—that is, the very document (usually
the first written draft) whose contents are the subject of discussion—for
quite often a later copy or a printed edition will do just as well; and
in the case of the Greek and Roman classics seldom are any but later copies
available.
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