ABSTRACT
For the sake of simplicity we will begin with the conventional answer to this question. Historians name the various sources they have used to carry out their research by providing a bibliography at the end of their writing. These bibliographies are usually divided into two categories of research materials. Primary sources are listed fi rst, followed by secondary sources. As this ordering suggests, primary sources are regarded as the most important for historical research. These sources might take the form of documents and old texts held in archives and libraries, archaeological remains and old buildings, old newspapers, fi lm footage, recordings of interviews from the period being studied. Secondary sources consist of the writings of other historians about a particular historical topic or event, and they are held to have a different kind of value to original sources. Secondary sources written by historians commonly appear in forms such as monographs, journal articles, popular histories and textbooks.
