Primary sources are original materials that were created at the time of an event or during a specific period of time. Primary materials can also be created after an event by participants or direct observers of the period of study.
Primary materials are important to researchers because it allows them to study as closely as possible a historical period or event without having actually witnessed it themselves. Primary does not mean they are the best sources but the first sources created for a historical period.
Examples of Primary Sources
A secondary source interprets, analyzes, or describes an event or period usually many years after the event has occurred. Secondary sources usually interpret primary sources and other secondary sources. Historical research compiled only through secondary sources is often frowned upon or discredited.
Examples Of Secondary Sources
Tertiary sources are often condensed overviews of primary and secondary sources with references and notes back to the primary and secondary materials for a topic. Background research and overviews are the primary reason to use tertiary sources, but they rarely contain enough depth on a topic to rely on solely for a research paper.
Examples of Tertiary Sources
Compared with books, articles are usually short. They are published as parts of larger publications that contain many articles, such as newspapers, magazines, or scholarly journals. Articles can also appear as parts of websites or as chapters within books.
Articles can be accessed by searching in most Library databases.
A "scholarly" article is usually one that has been written by an expert, peer reviewed, and published in a scholarly journal. "Peer Reviewed" means the article has been reviewed by a panel of experts before publication. Certain journals require peer review before they will publish an article. A "scholarly journal" is one that requires peer review and is usually written for researchers, scholars, or faculty.
The primary purpose is to inform the reader and scholarly articles usually contain a literature overview, the methods used to conduct the research, results and a list of sources consulted. The language is usually technical and contains jargon specific to that particular field. Scholarly articles can be dozens of pages or more in length.
In many Library databases, you can limit your search to peer reviewed articles by checking a box.
A popular article is usually written by staff journalists or freelance writers for a general audience. These are much shorter and simpler, with little or no jargon. The goal of these articles is mostly to entertain or give a brief overview of a topic, and they rarely contain a bibliography or links to the original sources.
| Topic | Scholarly | Popular |
| Fracking | An article from the Journal of Earth Science that analyzes the toxicity levels of fracking chemicals that leech into groundwater. | An article in Time magazine about fracking killing fish. |