Primary vs Secondary Sources
Think of it like this: if you made it, it's primary. If someone else
made it and you're just using it, it's secondary. It's exactly the same idea as
in History or Geography — the "primary vs secondary source" concept isn't unique to ICT,
it just gets applied to digital content too.
For example, if you personally record an interview with your grandad about his childhood,
that recording is a primary source — you created it directly. But if you then read
a newspaper article about local history that quotes someone else's interview, that newspaper
is a secondary source — someone else did the original work and you're consuming their
finished product.
| Primary Sources (your own) | Secondary Sources (someone else's) |
|---|
| Sound recordings | Newspapers |
| Photographs | Books |
| Interviews / questionnaires | Television & radio broadcasts |
| Social media posts | Websites |
| Emails | CDs, DVDs or Blu-rays |
Rule to remember
When choosing which source to use, always ask two questions:
1️⃣ Is it fit for purpose — does it actually answer what I need?
2️⃣ Is it fit for the intended audience — will the people reading it understand and trust it?
Practice Question 1
Sarah takes her own photographs at a school sports day and posts them on Instagram. A local newspaper later writes an article using a photo taken by a professional photographer. Classify each source as primary or secondary, and explain why.
Practice Question 2
Give one reason why a student researching World War II might prefer to use a secondary source (like a history textbook) over a primary source (like an original wartime letter).
A search engine is basically a librarian for the entire internet. Instead of you
wandering through billions of web pages yourself, the search engine has already gone out,
read (almost) every page, filed it away by topic, and built a system to instantly tell you
which pages are most relevant to what you typed.