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Thank you We sneak in primary sources Allah shmoop you

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can't create a historical drama are historical fiction without historical

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research and you can't do historical research without digging up

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some primary sources These guys captain phillips saving private ryan

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twelve years a slave zero dark thirty people actually had

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to do research when they were writing those awesome scripts

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Primary sources are original materials that were created during the

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time being studied or by someone with firsthand knowledge of

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the event So let's break it down Original means the

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source was created by someone actually living in the period

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we're studying So if we're studying world war two and

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original material could be the diary of a soldier he

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wrote it himself and he was actually in the war

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It originated in that time period Materials means that primary

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sources take different forms It could be a letter of

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painting even a toy then there's the created during the

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time being studied part well a newspaper article about world

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war two that was written yesterday would not be a

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primary source because it was written seventy plus years after

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the event Little hindsight but just to make it confusing

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Primary sources can be written after the event as long

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as it was created by somebody with first hand knowledge

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which means primary sources could include memoirs letters or interviews

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that were made after the event If the person making

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them was actually there at the time like our ww

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two vet Okay what isn't a primary source Well anything

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written about the past that wasn't written at that time

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or wasn't written by someone with firsthand knowledge of the

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event secondary source were usually text that used a bunch

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of primary sources to make an argument or to interpret

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the past But let's say you're writing a paper and

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need you primary and secondary sources You collect interviews from

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ww two bets documents from government officials describing their decisions

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and actions film footage from the front and a book

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published by a history professor in two thousand fourteen about

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world war two Well the interview's documents and film footage

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would all be primary sources The book published in two

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thousand fourteen would be a secondary source Okay we're going

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to hit you with some types of primary sources Pecs

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not the o m g l a welcome anything that's

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Written down like diary's personal letters were published works like

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books or newspapers images anything visual painting doodles photographs poster

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tapestry never recordings Other recordings only go back two hundred

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fifty years or so You've got recordings of music aural

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histories interviews tv shows radio programs and films that literally

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speak to us about the past Object is pretty much

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covers everything else clothes toys goings tools pottery and anything

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else you think if it was made in the past

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All right well so according to this definition couldn't anything

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that ever existed be a primary source Well sort of

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but keep in mind the further back in history go

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the less likely our fine primary sources that have survived

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ex deteriorate writing didn't always exist We're more likely to

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have old images or object but they also deteriorate So

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while we might have a ton of stuff from the

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recent past our primary sources get more and more rare

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as we move further back in history and our ability

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to construct a picture of the past It's a little

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fuzzy okay but we're in the world are all these

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things kept there's some sort of secret warehouse in area

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fifty one Where we find them is the nsa have

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a massive database of every sound ever made in the

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past hundred fifty years but no objects can be found

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in archives museums or personal collection Unfortunately you don't have

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to travel the world visiting all these places They're breaking

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into private residence There's Very convenient way of finding primary

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sources The internet There are millions and millions of primary

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sources that have been digitized and put on the internet

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Primary sources are the key to uncovering an accurate picture

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of the past without you could make up any story

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you wanted about History knows Maybe lincoln would have looked

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better as a blonde or score and seven blondes ago

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