primary texts
Firsthand historical materials
Primary texts are original works that serve as direct evidence or firsthand accounts—the raw material scholars analyze rather than commentary about it.
In literary studies, primary texts are the novels, poems, and plays themselves; in history, letters, diaries, and official documents.
The course requires reading primary texts, not just criticism.
Also called primary sources.
- novelsExtended prose fiction
- scripturesSacred religious writings
- constitutionsGoverning legal frameworks
- sutrasAphoristic teaching verses
- research papersDocumented scholarly investigations
poems · manuscripts · founding documents · eyewitness accounts · ship logs · treatises · letters · statutes · theses · archives · autobiographies · chronicles · papyri · charters · diaries · personal letters · codices · dissertations
primary textssecondary sources
Materials analyzing original records
commentaries · exegesis · scholarly apparatus · annotations · reviews
primary textsreference works
Publications for looking things up
encyclopedias · textbooks · handbooks · syntheses · digests
primary, text, prime, primer, primal, primacy, primarily, primitive, primeval