Aliyah Hoffman’s Updates

A Complete Guide to Cite and Reference primary and secondary sources in Chicago Style

Citing sources and giving proper references is a vital part of any professional or academic writing process. Adding sources helps you legitimize and back your work so that everyone reading it can know that your paper/essay is the real deal.

But sources can be a tricky thing to deal with at times. Especially when a professional essay writer is working with the Chicago Style because each type of source needs to be treated differently. The most common types of sources, you'll encounter are primary and secondary.

So, to help you out with citing and referencing the two types of sources using Chicago, some great guidelines have been given down below. But before we can get to those, it’s important you familiarize yourself with the two types, so you don’t end up confusing them.

Understanding the Types of Sources

Primary Sources

Think of such sources as the real, raw, firsthand experience accounts relating to a topic; from individuals that were in the thick of it all. As such, primary sources are ones that include information given by sources that were directly involved with the topic of discussion like skilled writers.

Common examples of such sources are listed as follows:

  • Texts relating to any laws or other types of original documents.
  • Newspapers reports were written by reporters and journalists that personally witnessed an event or took eyewitness accounts.
  • Given speeches, written diaries, letters, conducted interviews, and any other text that those involved themselves said or wrote.
  • Original research, data sets, and data from conducted surveys like that from a census or country statistics.
  • Photographs, video, and audio recordings that documented an event.

With the help of a personal essay writer, you can easily complete your assignment on time.

Secondary Sources

Anything that is a step further from primary sources can be referred to as a secondary source. This holds true even when those sources are directly quoting or using a primary source. So, you can imagine why many people get confused while citing these and just opt to use a write essay service. Regardless, these sources can very well be covering the same topic, but they differ in how they add an added level of interpretation or analysis.

Common examples of such sources are listed as follows:

  • Almost all books are related to a particular topic.
  • Any sort of analysis or interpretation of a data set.
  • Scholarly or research articles about a topic were written by people who weren’t directly involved.
  • Documentaries of any sort.

You can also create a request and ask someone to write an essay for me.

Citing and Referencing Primary Sources

For the sake of learning, we are going to cover a single example of a primary source (website) in detail. So that when you are writing essays, you know exactly what to look for. As such, the information you’ll need is:

  • The author’s first and last name plus their middle initial.
  • The title of the site.
  • The editor's name, if given.
  • The publication information.
  • The name of the organization or institute that sponsored the website.
  • The URL of the website.
  • The accessing date is in parentheses.

After you have all that your reference should look like the example below. While your citation will be guided by whether you are using the Notes-Bibliography style or the Author-date style. Feel free to contact a reliable essay writing service.

Author’s Last name, Author’s First name, Author's Middle Initial. Title of the website. Publisher info. Date of copyright. Sponsor. URL (Date of access).

Citing and Referencing Secondary Sources

Similarly, when it comes to a secondary source, the information needed is almost the same. While the citation still follows the same rules as above, the reference looks like the example below.

Author’s Surname, First Name [Name of original author]. “Title of the quote.” Source of the original quote. Location of publication: Publisher, Year. Quoted in Author’s First Name/Initial Surname [the author of the book that is referring to another author]. Title. Location of publication: Publisher, Year, page number.

And voila! That is all you need to know to cite the two types of sources. However, if you need professional help ask someone to EssayWriter.College.