Sources

I think primary source is something that is written “live”. If somebody took notes during a meeting, then the notes may be a primary source when people were talking about the meeting in the future. A secondary source would be something written from a primary source or something that has been written after the event had happened. A history textbook with description of the meeting may be something that is a secondary source. For example, if there is a book about the 911 earthquake in Taiwan, then it would probably be a secondary source. I would probably describe the primary source as someone witnessing an event and writing it down at that moment. On the other hand, a secondary source is where someone makes an inference about something. Since you didn’t witness the events yourself, you can only read from other people’s primary source and make inference from it. I think this is the major difference between primary source and secondary source. I would say that almost all secondary sources came from what they read from primary sources, and secondary sources may even be biased or slightly different from the primary source since it may be edited through inferences, and errors may occur.