Primary Sources: Resources

Primary sources are materials that provide direct evidence or give eyewitness accounts of people and events.  Primary sources may be:

• written (letters, diaries, autobiographies, manuscripts, articles reporting original scientific research);
• recorded (audio or video recordings); or
• created (artifacts, works of art). 

What constitutes a primary source may vary between disciplines, but primary sources are always considered to be authoritative.

For more information about primary sources, and the difference between primary and secondary sources, visit our "Primary vs. Secondary" page at https://libguides.elmira.edu/research/primary_secondary