A research paper is based on primary sources, that is, on original documents. Primary sources are sources created during an event or about an event by the people who experienced it .
Primary sources can be letters or newspaper accounts or photographs.
They can also be oral histories, memoirs, or autobiographies, later recollections of the time by someone who was there. Secondary sources are books or articles written about an event or aspects of an event, using primary sources . Secondary sources are important because they give you background information about the topic you want to research. Before starting a research project on the Triangle Fire, read an account of the event, such as Leon Stein's book The Triangle Fire and relevant documents from his Out of the Sweatshop . The latter book is out of print but the local library might have it or be able to obtain it through interlibrary loan.