Are magazine articles good source in writing history?
A primary source is an original document created by someone who witnessed an event, usually a journalist. The author or publisher may have written the material at the time of the event, or the document may have been created years later. For example, a newspaper article that reports a visit by President Nixon to the Soviet Union in 1959 is a primary source because it was written at the time of the event.
Secondary sources are works that have been written about an event by a historian or other scholar after the event occurred, but they were not part of it. For example, a book about judicial punishment in the 1920s would be considered a secondary source because it was written by a historian after the events occurred.
Periodicals are publications that are specialized in their content for a specific audience. For example, if you are studying environmental history, you might find that newsletters for advocacy groups such as the Sierra Club or Earth First! contain a wealth of useful information.
They are often well researched and objectively presented, although not always.
Some periodicals are written for a general reading audience, such as general interest magazines (Time, Newsweek online) and other news sources. They may offer a brief overview of the topic, but may also go into more depth than other resources.
They are a source of primarily factual information, but they can also be used to interpret what people at the time were thinking about the event you are researching. For instance, if you are writing about the great Chicago fire of 1871, you could look at the local newspaper articles about the fire to see what they said about the causes and how the community interpreted them.
When you use a periodical as a source, be sure to read it with other sources that were available at the same time. For example, if you find an article about the Chicago fire that says a cow kicked over a lamp to start the fire, you should read it with other sources that say the same thing.
