"Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event or topic under consideration, either as participants or as witnesses....Some primary sources are written documents, such as letters, diaries, newspaper and magazine articles, speeches, autobiographies, treatises, census data, and marriage , birth, and death registers...(Some primary resources) are not written, like works of art, films, recordings, and interviews."
From Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007), 6-7.