Primary sources are best for uncovering background or historical information about a topic and broadening your understanding of a subject by exposing someone to others' perspectives, interpretations, and conclusions.

Historiography deals with detailed histories, which means it seeks to discover what actually happened in the past or give an account of past actions.

Studying the stories of individuals and situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her moral sense and hone it against some real complexities that individuals have faced in challenging settings.

Studying history makes us understand ourselves and our time period better and prepares us to handle present problems intelligently.

A primary source is a document or artifact that has not been evaluated or interpreted by anyone else. They are original materials that you can analyze on your own.

History is useful in meeting new situations and solving the problems of the present.

History helps provide identity, which is unquestionably one reason all modern nations encourage its teaching in some form.

History acquaints us with the diverse kinds of organizing human societies and cures us of dread of change in society

Biography is the study and crafting of history and the collection of historical evidence.

Historiography describes the fundamental outlook, ideas, or attitude that a historian or a school of historians brings to bear on a particular historical problem.

If you were studying a historical period, then diaries, letters, and official records made by people who experienced such a historical period would be secondary sources.

If you were studying educational theorists, any source that introduces, interprets, or critiques their theories are primary.

The data collected by the person living in the period studied is primary, whereas research that relies on that person's findings is secondary.

A book that introduces a theorist's work, critiques it, or applies their theories in a particular context is a secondary source.

Secondary sources can also contain primary source material, but the other way around is not possible.

Historians should refrain from the interpretation and only write down how things happened.