The Differences between Secondary and Primary Sources Assignment

The Differences between Secondary and Primary Sources - Assignment Example According to her, the secondary sources are the scholarly books that are based on primary sources data but are analyzed, criticized and interpreted and thus restructured. She presents the case of diary entries by Annie Frank from the time she was 13 where Anne discusses her everyday thoughts in details. When they are just extracted but not edited, primary sources can also be used as secondary sources. Secondary sources comprise of publications like books, magazines, and manuscripts. Secondary sources are open to problems generated by translation, misinterpretation, and massive editing of the data while the primary sources are more prone to feelings of the writer. For example, where paintings and exist in good conditions, it would be pointless to edit them for research or historical purposes. That a historian uses primary or secondary sources will greatly influence the credibility of their work. This is because, with primary sources, there is a greater benefit of the doubt as it is in its raw form compared to secondary sources which are heavily adapted. The problems faced by historians during the research are subjectivity, the immense of the work under study, authenticity, the choice of subject to study and problem of historical knowledge. According to Adeoti and Adeyeri, the problem of the choice of study is more menacing. Consider a person interested in studying the evolution of man. The historian has to ask and answer questions such as; does the historical evidence exist? Which part of that has not been possibly covered before?. When the evidence exists, they may be inaccessible to the historian due to bureaucratic and logistical difficulties such as traveling and forgeries.