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Chicago/Turabian Style for History

Citations: Chicago/Turabian Manual of Style

What are Secondary Sources?

A secondary sources is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or period after the even occurred and, generally speaking, with the use of primary sources. Allows the historian to investigate the period through sources written after the event occurred. 

Examples: 

  • Bibliographies
  • Biographical works
  • Reference books, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and atlases
  • Articles from magazines, journals, and newspapers written after the fact
  • History books and other popular or scholarly books
  • Works of criticism and interpretation
  • Commentaries and treatises
  • Textbooks
  • Indexes and abstracts