Identify original research and evidence, through primary sources, to determine how valid and credible your own opinions will be.
Difference between primary and secondary sources
Primary sources
A primary source is firsthand testimony, direct evidence, or an original creation about the topic you are studying.
Generally it is created at the time of the event, and it is a witness’s or participant’s insight.
Examples of primary sources can be:
- original research articles
- news reports on current events
- diaries
- statistical data
- interviews
Secondary sources
A secondary source is an interpretation, analysis, or restatement of primary sources.
Often it attempts to describe or explain primary sources and give perspective to those sources. It may compare, interpret, or document information on a topic, and to do so it may include photos, quotations, or other excerpts of primary sources.
Secondary sources are often articles, reviews, biographies, essays, critiques, and books that interpret, analyze, or place in context a research work or works. Most sources in a typical research paper are secondary sources.
Tertiary sources
A tertiary source is compiled from primary and secondary sources.
Generally it *does not* include significant original work on the part of the author. It is often an overview of, or aid to finding, primary or secondary sources. Normally, analysis and judgment are not significant parts of a tertiary source. Instead, a tertiary source provides an introduction, pointer, or gateway to a subject.
Tertiary sources include almanacs, chronologies, summaries, timelines, dictionaries and encyclopedias, directories, guidebooks, indexes, manuals, and textbooks.
Primary sources in one discipline may be considered secondary in others. Check out these examples and try out the activities to get a better understanding
Primary sources in different disciplines
STEM
Primary sources tend to be peer-reviewed original research articles, lab data, data sets, experiments, surveys, statistics, conference reports, algorithms, code libraries, and models. Sources for medicine or healthcare fields may also make use of primary and secondary sources as listed in the social sciences.
Secondary sources can be books and articles about a primary research topic, reviews, editorial articles, biographies, newsletters, documentaries, and professional news sources.
Social sciences
Primary sources include data sets, statistics, non-profit reports, recordings, speeches, government documents, legal documents, documents of record, peer-reviewed original research articles, test results, experiments, model, surveys, case studies, ethnographies, recordings, oral histories, the evidence of experts (or in the case of journalism, the experts themselves), and case studies.
Secondary sources can be books and articles about primary sources or a social sciences topic, reviews, editorial articles, biographies, case studies, newsletters, documentaries, and professional news sources.
Humanities & history
Primary sources include letters, autobiographies, manuscripts, speeches, historical and legal documents, interviews, maps, oral histories, diaries, memoirs, tools or other artifacts, recordings of events as they happen, photographs, [feature] films, personal letters, creative writing (especially fiction), original music, poems, plays, and original creative art.
Secondary sources can be biographies, reviews, books and articles about primary sources or a humanities topic, literary criticism, editorial articles, newsletters, documentaries, and professional news sources.