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You should always consider the strengths and weaknesses of the primary and secondary sources you encounter in the course of your historical study. Primary sources automatically be considered more reliable than secondary sources because they were produced in the historical time period you are studying. Although primary sources give you firsthand insight into historical events, they usually provide only partial snapshots of events in the historical record.

Secondary sources synthesize primary sources $($and often, other secondary sources$)$ into a historical narrative of past events. However, the authors of secondary sources often did not witness the historical events or the particular historical time period that you are studying. Therefore, when you are reading and analyzing a secondary source, you are considering someone else's of historical events, not a firsthand version