ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Analyzing Primary Sources Videos 5 videos

Analyzing Primary Sources: Listening to Sounds
277 Views

In this video from our courses, learn all about listening to sounds while analyzing your primary source documents.

Analyzing Primary Sources: Looking at Objects
836 Views

In this video learn about analyzing primary source documents that are objects.

Analyzing Primary Sources: Seeing Images
768 Views

In this video, learn about reading and understanding images inside a primary document.

See All

Analyzing Primary Sources: What is a Primary Source? 1533 Views


Share It!


Description:

In this video, learn exactly what a primary source is and isn't.


Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak analyzing primary sources What is a

00:06

primary source Welcome to analyzing primary sources Eyelash mup we

00:12

bet you've been waiting all summer for this to come

00:14

out Okay so here we go You're doing research are

00:17

looking all over the internet trying to produce a convincing

00:20

paper or video of whatever homework it is You're trying

00:24

to figure out what is the best way to do

00:27

that Well one arrow in your quiver is citing primary

00:31

sources and we're here to talk with deb from shmoop

00:34

about how you do that What is a primary source

00:40

We'll primary source is original material from the time period

00:46

understudy So you are studying the renaissance then a primary

00:52

source is something from the renaissance Exactly It can also

00:58

be something written or produced by someone who has firsthand

01:02

knowledge of that time period of that event So you

01:06

might be talking about say a diary from the civil

01:09

war that the american civil war that is ah primary

01:12

source also a primary source would be a diary written

01:16

by someone after the war was over but who had

01:19

experienced the war firsthand So both of those counters primary

01:23

sources if you're then reading something from the nineteen hundreds

01:28

about the civil war and the person who wrote it

01:31

or you know produced it in whatever way didn't live

01:33

through the civil war doesn't have firsthand knowledge You're no

01:35

longer talking about a primary source So just because a

01:38

source is old and from the past it doesn't mean

01:41

that it's a primary source so primary you know means

01:44

first yes are first in line and when we think

01:47

primary we should think about the actual thing that was

01:52

produced or that we're referring to not what someone commented

01:58

on something or the first exactly exactly its original material

02:02

from the time period not someone interpreting it or commenting

02:05

and commenting on it got it And so for normal

02:08

people using the internet and so like where do they

02:11

go to find primary sources Like i guess wikipedia almost

02:15

by definition is not a primary source unless you're writing

02:18

a paper on wikipedia correct Um what could be articles

02:21

or not Although wicky source has a lot of primary

02:24

source isn't it You want to be careful there it's

02:26

always best to go back to as close to the

02:28

original sources get if you have all rare books library

02:33

in your face man Awesome You can actually find the

02:35

book from the seventeenth century more likely that you're going

02:38

to find out and internet archive there tons of archives

02:42

If you're talking about the victorian period there's victorian web

02:45

dot or calm i don't know what but basically depending

02:48

on you know what time period you're talking about There's

02:50

gonna be different archives online where they've totally digitized old

02:55

stuff So they either taken ah picture of a sculpture

02:59

that was made in the sixteenth century or they've scanned

03:03

in a book that was written in the nineteenth century

03:06

Whatever the cases they've turned it into something very cool

03:12

What is a primary source What is not a primary

03:16

source Where can you find a primary source Is wikipedia 00:03:21.213 --> [endTime] a trustworthy source

Related Videos

What is Shmoop Mythology?
2225 Views

The gods and heroes battle it out with monsters in the best of mythology.

Echo and Narcissus
4243 Views

Today we aren't looking for the most virtuous person, or most likeable, but rather the most disturbing. Will it be Echo, the nymph who is doomed to...

Icarus
5397 Views

Don't fly too close to the sun, Shmoopers.

Perseus
10263 Views

This dude decapitated a creature with snakes for hair and married a beautiful maiden that he saved from a sea monster. Let's see how many of you ca...

Hephaestus (Vulcan)
5843 Views

Would you like to be immortal? We expected as much. But how about ifyou were ugly and your mother tossed you out of your home, giving you a limp fo...