Know your Sources
When I do my research for writing, I must know the difference between a primary, secondary, and tertiary source. These are very simple categories to understand if you can connect with their meanings.
What do I mean by that? Well, I want you to understand that nearly every day of your life, when you write, do homework, or record information personally, you create a primary resource - like an autobiographical record. Something directly from your mind, life, thoughts, and hand will be recorded for others to read, learn, and understand.
A Secondary source is removed from you, just one step away, like an article written about you in a school newspaper or a magazine. You might think of this as someone doing a biography "about" you, someone taking primary source information and re-recording or interpreting it in "their" words about you.
They might quote you, but they must indicate a direct quote in their writing - so that the interpretation is still someone else's words about you - not yours.
A Tertiary source, now this funny word means that the information you are reading is "at least" three steps away from the original author or autobiography. This is a piece of information about a piece of information, and most tertiary information you find is in the form of reference books such as dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Primary Sources
A primary source is an original document containing firsthand information about a person or a topic. This includes but is not limited to diaries, journals, personal letters, business letters, original works of art or thoughts, photographs, works of literature, autobiographies, and anything else that is an "original" from the hands of the creator.
Secondary Sources
A secondary source contains "comments" on or a discussion about a primary source, offering an interpretation of the original information gathered from a primary source. This includes but is not limited to biographies, indexes, and bibliographies used to locate a secondary source, articles in newspapers, newsletters, and basic magazines.
Sources can be confusing because you MUST know what you are using your research for because sometimes, the same source might be a primary source for one research question and a secondary source for another. It all depends upon the relationship of the source you are researching to the research question.
As an example, you might be researching Ann Frank. If you read Ann Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Ann Frank, this would be a primary source as it is the diary of Ann Frank, but if you read Ann Frank's Story: Her Life Retold for Young Children by Carol Ann Lee, you will be reading a secondary source. On the other hand, if you were researching Carol Ann Lee (author) and her writing style, this book would become a primary source for your research question about her writing style. It is all in the questions you ask.
Cycle of Information
PRIMARY
SECONDARY
TERTIARY
DEFINITIONS: Sources that contain raw, original, non-interpreted, and unevaluated information.
Sources that digest, analyze, evaluate, and interpret the information contained within primary sources. They tend to be argumentative.
Sources that compile, analyze, and digest secondary sources. They tend to be factual.
TIMING OF PUBLICATION CYCLE
Primary sources come first in the publication cycle.
Secondary sources come second in the publication cycle.
Tertiary sources tend to come last in the publication cycle.
FORMATS: depends on the kind of analysis being conducted.
Often newspapers, weekly and monthly-produced magazines, letters, and diaries.
Often scholarly periodicals and books. (Professors like these.)
Often reference books.
Example: Historian (studying the Vietnam War)
Newspaper articles, weekly news magazines, monthly magazines, diaries, correspondence, and diplomatic records.
Articles in scholarly journals analyzing the war, possibly footnoting primary documents; books analyzing the war.
Historical Dictionary of Vietnam; The Vietnam War, An Almanac
Example: Literary Critic (studying the literature of the Vietnam War)
Novels, poems, plays, diaries, correspondence.
Articles in scholarly journals analyzing the literature, books studying the literature, and formal biographies of writers of the war.
Writing About Vietnam; A Bibliography of the Literature of the Vietnam Conflict; Dictionary of Literary Biography
Example: Psychologist (studying the effects of the Vietnam syndrome)
Article in a magazine that reports research and its methodology; notes taken by a clinical psychologist.
Articles in scholarly publications synthesizing original research results; books analyzing original research results.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology
Example: Scientist (studying Agent Orange exposure)
Article in a magazine reporting research and methodology.
Articles in scholarly publications synthesize the results of original research; books do the same.
Agent Orange and Vietnam: An Annotated Bibliography
Library of Congress Chart on Sources
PRIMARY
SECONDARY
TERTIARY
biography (only if it is on an autobiographical record)
cases
correspondence
description and travel
diaries
fiction
interview
personal narrative
pictorial works
poetry
short stories
sources
biography (only if it is describing a biography--not an autobiography)
criticism and interpretation
history
history and criticism
government policy
law and legislation
moral and ethical aspects
political aspects
politics and government
psychological aspects
public opinion
religion
religious aspects
social policy
study and teaching
abstracts
bibliography
bio-bibliography
chronology
classification
dictionaries
dictionaries and encyclopedias
directories
encyclopedias
guidebooks
handbooks, manuals, Etc.
identification
indexes
registers
statistics
tables
index
Copyright © 20017. J. L. Panagopoulos All Rights Reserved.
What do I mean by that? Well, I want you to understand that nearly every day of your life, when you write, do homework, or record information personally, you create a primary resource - like an autobiographical record. Something directly from your mind, life, thoughts, and hand will be recorded for others to read, learn, and understand.
A Secondary source is removed from you, just one step away, like an article written about you in a school newspaper or a magazine. You might think of this as someone doing a biography "about" you, someone taking primary source information and re-recording or interpreting it in "their" words about you.
They might quote you, but they must indicate a direct quote in their writing - so that the interpretation is still someone else's words about you - not yours.
A Tertiary source, now this funny word means that the information you are reading is "at least" three steps away from the original author or autobiography. This is a piece of information about a piece of information, and most tertiary information you find is in the form of reference books such as dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Primary Sources
A primary source is an original document containing firsthand information about a person or a topic. This includes but is not limited to diaries, journals, personal letters, business letters, original works of art or thoughts, photographs, works of literature, autobiographies, and anything else that is an "original" from the hands of the creator.
Secondary Sources
A secondary source contains "comments" on or a discussion about a primary source, offering an interpretation of the original information gathered from a primary source. This includes but is not limited to biographies, indexes, and bibliographies used to locate a secondary source, articles in newspapers, newsletters, and basic magazines.
Sources can be confusing because you MUST know what you are using your research for because sometimes, the same source might be a primary source for one research question and a secondary source for another. It all depends upon the relationship of the source you are researching to the research question.
As an example, you might be researching Ann Frank. If you read Ann Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Ann Frank, this would be a primary source as it is the diary of Ann Frank, but if you read Ann Frank's Story: Her Life Retold for Young Children by Carol Ann Lee, you will be reading a secondary source. On the other hand, if you were researching Carol Ann Lee (author) and her writing style, this book would become a primary source for your research question about her writing style. It is all in the questions you ask.
Cycle of Information
PRIMARY
SECONDARY
TERTIARY
DEFINITIONS: Sources that contain raw, original, non-interpreted, and unevaluated information.
Sources that digest, analyze, evaluate, and interpret the information contained within primary sources. They tend to be argumentative.
Sources that compile, analyze, and digest secondary sources. They tend to be factual.
TIMING OF PUBLICATION CYCLE
Primary sources come first in the publication cycle.
Secondary sources come second in the publication cycle.
Tertiary sources tend to come last in the publication cycle.
FORMATS: depends on the kind of analysis being conducted.
Often newspapers, weekly and monthly-produced magazines, letters, and diaries.
Often scholarly periodicals and books. (Professors like these.)
Often reference books.
Example: Historian (studying the Vietnam War)
Newspaper articles, weekly news magazines, monthly magazines, diaries, correspondence, and diplomatic records.
Articles in scholarly journals analyzing the war, possibly footnoting primary documents; books analyzing the war.
Historical Dictionary of Vietnam; The Vietnam War, An Almanac
Example: Literary Critic (studying the literature of the Vietnam War)
Novels, poems, plays, diaries, correspondence.
Articles in scholarly journals analyzing the literature, books studying the literature, and formal biographies of writers of the war.
Writing About Vietnam; A Bibliography of the Literature of the Vietnam Conflict; Dictionary of Literary Biography
Example: Psychologist (studying the effects of the Vietnam syndrome)
Article in a magazine that reports research and its methodology; notes taken by a clinical psychologist.
Articles in scholarly publications synthesizing original research results; books analyzing original research results.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology
Example: Scientist (studying Agent Orange exposure)
Article in a magazine reporting research and methodology.
Articles in scholarly publications synthesize the results of original research; books do the same.
Agent Orange and Vietnam: An Annotated Bibliography
Library of Congress Chart on Sources
PRIMARY
SECONDARY
TERTIARY
biography (only if it is on an autobiographical record)
cases
correspondence
description and travel
diaries
fiction
interview
personal narrative
pictorial works
poetry
short stories
sources
biography (only if it is describing a biography--not an autobiography)
criticism and interpretation
history
history and criticism
government policy
law and legislation
moral and ethical aspects
political aspects
politics and government
psychological aspects
public opinion
religion
religious aspects
social policy
study and teaching
abstracts
bibliography
bio-bibliography
chronology
classification
dictionaries
dictionaries and encyclopedias
directories
encyclopedias
guidebooks
handbooks, manuals, Etc.
identification
indexes
registers
statistics
tables
index
Copyright © 20017. J. L. Panagopoulos All Rights Reserved.