A Guide To...Classics

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

A primary source is a first-hand witness to a historical event or period (that is, it was originally created at that point in history).  Primary sources offer a first-hand perspective which is untouched by hindsight, subsequent events, or modern knowledge. They provide insights about the actions, motivations and emotions involved in a historical period, and allow us to understand history as it was experienced at the time rather than as we analyze it today.   

Unlike with secondary sources, the value of primary sources lies in their proximity to the event rather than a particular publication venue and/or authority (though this can also play a role in your interpretation of the source). For this reason, primary sources may include a combination of scholarly, popular, unpublished, and other kinds of sources. 

Secondary sources are second-hand witnesses -- they provide descriptions and/or analysis of historical events and documents after the fact. Secondary sources usually draw their information from primary sources, but add a layer of interpretation, and often rely upon the kind of understanding of historical periods and/or events that only becomes clear sometime later.  

Primary Sources & the Ancient World 

Due to the passage of time, primary sources for the study of the ancient world look different from those you might encounter in studying more-modern periods of history. Rather than published sources, ancient primary sources often take the form of manuscripts (or, in your case, translated and/or transcribed editions or reconstruction of manuscript texts); inscriptions; artwork; archeological objects and sites; and others.

Because the selection of surviving documentation is more limited, we may rely on literary sources to tell us about ancient culture and life more heavily than we might for other periods in history. Often the provenance of an ancient text (its origins -- that is, how we received it) is less clear.  We can identify a letter handwritten by Abraham Lincoln; but, for example, Sappho's writing survives in fragments, with pieces missing, and the manuscripts we have were likely not written by Sappho herself. Likewise, the works of Homer began as an oral tradition which is believed to have been converted to text some centuries later. These differences affect how we process ancient primary sources. 

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

Compare the articles linked below. Which one(s) are scholarly? What makes you say this? 

Scholarly sources are written by experts on a particular subject (for example, a professor or other researcher). They also go through an extra process of review and approval by a group of other experts before they can be published. Usually, scholarly articles are written in 'academic-ese' and designed to be read by other scholars. However, because scholarly sources take a long time to be approved and published, they are not always good sources for current events.  

How can you tell if you have a scholarly article in your hand? 
The chart below compares the characteristics of scholarly vs. popular (non-scholarly) sources: 

Understanding Scholarly Sources

Working with scholarly/academic sources can be a different process than other types of reading. Because scholarly sources are written by and for, and reviewed by, academics, they are geared towards a very specific audience. But, there are some tricks you can use, not only to better understand what you are reading, but also to use what you are reading to further your own searching. 

The link below requires an Holy Cross log-in. It contains a sample academic article, with annotations to highlight different elements of the article

Publishing Privilege

Evaluating information sources in a truly critical way requires an understanding of who decides, and how, which information becomes available to you.  "Scholarly" publishing is, by its nature, a competitive process. In order to publish in a scholarly journal or through a university press, an author's research must display a certain amount of rigor, as well as relevant credentials (usually a PhD in the field). There are also issues, historically, with who has been able to publish. This is not only because of individual publications, but also a result of which voices (and opinions) have historically been welcomed in academia. There's a lot to unpack here! 

Librarian Shea Swauger summed some of these issues up in College & Research Libraries News: 

"The history of scholarly publishing is less a meritocracy of ideas and more a reflection of who held privilege in society. Access to at least one, and often multiple, intersections of privilege were almost a requisite for being considered to join in the scholarly conversation. Who and what got published was largely determined by established power structures that favored maleness, whiteness, cis-gendered heterosexuality, wealth, the upper class, and Western ethnocentrism. Note that these are still the dominant structures that control our social and scholarly discourse." (Swauger 2017, p. 603)

Because of these issues, in certain fields / around certain topics, there has been growing acceptance of voices outside of the "traditional" academic sources. 

Information Privilege

Reliable information sources are expensive (which is why it's so hard to find them in Google!). People who are not affiliated with an academic institution, who are affiliated with an institution which is underfunded and/or who live in an area where internet may be restricted or difficult to access, have less access to "scholarly" information than others. This influences who is able to benefit from scholarly information, and subsequently who is able to construct research of their own on the basis of high-quality existing research. 

When scholars publish their work, they do sometimes have the option to make that work fully available for everyone to read. Much of the time, however, that option costs them thousands of dollars out of pocket (and note, by the way, that scholars do not get paid for publishing, peer-reviewing publications, or -- usually -- editing the publications together!). 

How does information privilege work? Check out this graphic from Duke University Libraries for examples of how it can affect students. Of course, the impact on researchers is much greater!