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Political Science: Primary Sources

OntheWeb: Primary Docs

  • Avalon Project 
    Primary documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy, and Government.
  • Internet History Source Books Project 
    Primary readings for Ancient, Medieval, Modern, African, East Asian, Global, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, and the History of Science and Women's History.

Government Documents OntheWeb

  • ovinfo  

    Govinfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO) and provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.

  • Congress.gov  
    Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. 

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Minnesotahistory. (2015, September 1). Primary vs. Secondary Sources [Video]. https://youtu.be/TgU1BcDStK0

Primary Sources

  • ​Artifacts 
  • Photographs
  • Audio recordings 
  • Diaries
  • Email
  • Interviews
  • Oral histories
  • Original Studies
  • Letters
  • Documents 
  • Government Documents
  • Photographs
  • Proceedings of Meetings, conferences, symposia
  • Speeches
  • Survey Research 
  • First-person video recordings  
  • Works of art
  • Works architecture
  • Works of literature
  • Works of music 
  • Newspaper articles written at the time of the even