Sidney Silverman Library at Bergen Community College (NJ) offers a straightforward definition of the difference between primary and secondary sources. "Primary sources are original materials such as autobiographies, poems, diaries, documents, research articles, original data, or an original creation such as a piece of art." Materials that "describe, explain or interpret primary sources," they explain, are secondary sources. "These include literature criticism, biographies, books about a topic, reviews, encyclopedias and dictionaries."
In Primary vs. Secondary, they also provide this useful checklist of examples:
| Primary Sources | Secondary Sources |
| autobiography | biography |
| painting or object of art | article reviewing or criticizing the art |
| personal diary or letters | book about the person or event |
| treaty (government document) | essay interpreting the document |
| poem, novel, short story, etc. | literary criticism of the work |
| firsthand observer accounts of event | report on event years later |
| play, film, television show, performance | biography of the writer |
| speech given by a person | commentary on the speech |
| research report by researchers | interpretation of the research |
| photographs | explanation of photographs |
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