Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are interpretations of the past written by historians often based on primary sources.  A secondary source is one in which the eyewitness or the participant i.e. the person describing the event was not actually present but who obtained his/her descriptions or narrations from another person or source. This ‘another person’ may or may not be a primary source. They reflect filtered information that has been passed through one source to another. These are the sources that indirectly relate to a historical event. Historians take the raw data found in primary sources and transform it into written histories that attempt to explain how and why things happened as they did. Secondary sources, thus, do not have a direct physical relationship with the event being studied. A good historian uses them for general information, substantiation, description, alternative interpretations, and understanding of the topic. Secondary sources yield ideas and new questions in historical inquiries.

Secondary sources consist of:

• Books/Monographs
• Historical dictionaries and encyclopedias
• Reviews
• Scholarly articles,
• Essays, and
• Lectures

Secondary sources provide three basic understanding to the historians:

It provides background information about a topic. Reading secondary sources can convey a strong understanding of the present knowledge about a particular topic. Thus it provides a preview, which helps the historian to initiate his research.

It provides a sense of historical context. It gives an idea about the time period and the individual, theme, or event discussed.

It provides a historiographical context. Secondary sources reflect the theoretical and methodological approaches employed by different historians on a particular topic. It provides an idea about the questions posed by these historians, their interpretations of the sources, how they supported their arguments, etc.

Limitations of Secondary Sources

Relying predominantly upon secondary sources denotes faulty, weak historical research. It is possible that secondary sources contain errors due to the passing of information from one source to another. These errors could get multiplied when the information passes through many sources thereby resulting in the misinterpretation of history. Thus, wherever possible, the researcher should try to use primary sources of data. However, that does not reduce the value of secondary sources.

Since secondary data have already been obtained, it is highly desirable that proper scrutiny of such data is made before they are used by the investigator. In fact, the user has to be extra cautious while using secondary data. In this context, Prof. Bowley rightly points out that “secondary data should not be accepted at their face value.” Therefore, before using the secondary data the investigators should consider the reliability of the data.