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Primary and Secondary Sources in the Humanities

Check Your Knowledge

The following three pairs each contain one primary source and one secondary source. Can you correctly identify each one?

 
Pair 1 
King Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Atlantic Monthly, Apr. 2018, pp. 74–83. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
          direct=true&db=f5h&AN=134398805&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Aspel, Joyce. “Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ and Non-Violent Social Transformation.” Great Books Written in Prison:
          Essays on Classic Works from Plato to Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by J. Ward Regan, McFarland & Company Publishing, 2015, pp.
           230– 46. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2015297098&site=eds-live&scope=site.
 

Highlight for answer:  The first is the primary source. While Aspel's work no doubt quotes King's "Letters from a Birmingham Jail", it is still an extension and commentary on that work, and would not constitute a primary source, despite containing quotes of a primary source.

 

Pair 2
Publishers Weekly. 2005. “The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke,” February 21. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
       direct=true&db=edsgac&AN=edsgac.A129251447&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Rilke, Rainer Maria, and Ulrich Baer. 2005. The Poet’s Guide to Life : The Wisdom of Rilke. Modern Library.

       https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat02900a&AN=sul.44040&site=eds-live&scope=site.
 

Highlight for answer:  The second option is the primary source. Though they bear the same title, the first is a review of the actual primary source.

 

Pair 3

Rembrandt van Rijn. Small Self Portrait. mid-1650’s. Oil on walnut panel, 48.9 x 40.2. Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.

       https://jstor.org/stable/community.18111293.

Chapman, H. Perry, and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. 1990. Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits : A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity. Princeton

      University Press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat02900a&AN=sul.30340&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Highlight for answer:  The first is the primary source. Many of Rembrandt's works are self portraits, so going only by the name can provide confusion, but the careful viewer will recognize only one of these works are a painting.