..."material that is contemporary to the events being examined. Such sources include, among other things,
diaries, letters, newspapers, magazine articles, tape recordings, pictures, and maps..." (Robin Winks,
The Historian as Detective: Essays on Evidence (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p.xx)
Secondary sources must be well-documented, that is, the author must clearly and accurately indicate from where
ideas other than his/her own were taken. This means footnotes and/or a bibliography.
"A primary source is distinguished from a secondary by the fact that the former gives the words of the
witnesses or first recorders of an event ... The researcher, using a number of such primary sources, produces a secondary source ."
(Jacques Barzun, The Modern Researcher, Fifth edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), p.114 note ), or
A document that comments on, builds on or analyzes a subject using primary and/or other secondary sources.