Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time of the event you are studying. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience. Primary sources are created:
A primary source is not necessarily your main source!
For more information on primary sources and their uses refer to the History 1 Research Canvas Module 3: Working with Primary Sources page.
REMEMBER: Be open and expansive in your thinking of what primary source to choose. It doesn't help to get fixated on a single idea.
Here are some ideas:
Primary sources provide a window into the past—unfiltered access to the record of artistic, social, scientific and political thought and achievement during the specific period under study, produced by people who lived during that period.
Coming into close contact with these unique, often profoundly personal, documents and objects can provides a very real sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era.
Use Noodletools to cite all your sources. Create a new project and use Advanced Chicago/Turabian style.
If your source is one of many collected together in a book: