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Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

General Sites

Primary Sources

Because women's studies is an interdisciplinary field, the exact definition of primary sources may vary depending on the focus of one's research. In women's studies, primary sources are often considered to be the documents that speak directly about women and their own experience of their lives. Such documents may be letters, diaries, autobiographies, contemporaneous media accounts of events, or even statistical reports.

 



Local Women's/Motherhood Resources


Bibliographies and Periodical Indexes



Associations, Organizations, News, and Blogs



 
In the social sciences and the sciences, scholars use the terms "primary" and "secondary" differently from scholars in the humanities. 
 
Primary research refers to the research conducted by the authors of the original source. The source will describe the authors' methodology, results and conclusions. This might be raw data, letters, research or study, tests, news reports, interviews, or some journal articles.
 
Secondary research describes or analyzes the research done by others. These include news analyses, magazine articles, some journal articles, scholarly books, opinion pieces or editorials. These can be excellent resources that can lead you to additional primary research on your topic.

Citing Your Sources

While writing research papers, you may need to:

 List your sources in bibliographies or works cited, and

♦ Provide either footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations


For more help with citations, check this guide out.