It's easy to talk about needing to have these things, but for the beginner it is perplexing. Hopefully this web site will help you brush up on your writing skills as well as help you understand how to organize a history paper. Click here for a web site that gives some excellent advice, and the Possible Topics link in the menu below can spark some ideas as well. Primary sources record the words of someone who participated in or witnessed the events described or of someone who received information from a participant. There are many different types of primary sources, and in some instances may overlap categories.
Secondary sources are findings of someone who has investigated the primary sources.
The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Steven Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer is based on primary sources. Your paper will be a secondary source, since you are interpreting the primary sources. Some books, especially textbooks, are actually tertiary sources because they are interpreting the secondary sources. A term paper is based on secondary sources. With this type of paper, you would read the various writings on a specific topic, present the different ideas of those authors, and interpret them for the reader.