Understanding Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

In the previous chapter, we discussed various sources of information—from personal interviews to audio-visual recordings, Web pages to print materials, and more. Sources can be labeled primary, secondary, or tertiary, depending on their distance from the information they share.

Primary Sources

Primary sources give firsthand information—original and unfiltered. Examples are eyewitness accounts, personal journals, interviews, surveys, experiments, historical documents, and artifacts. These sources have a close, direct connection to their subjects.

Example Project	Possible Primary Sources
Predicting your state’s growth over the next decade	Previous census reports Chamber of Commerce reports on business growth Interview with a state senator or similar official
Learning NASA’s space-elevator plans	Interview with NASA scientist Video of NASA Power Beaming Challenge events
Analyzing themes in The Great Gatsby	The text of the novel Nonfiction essays by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Advantages: Primary sources directly address your topic and often provide information that is unavailable elsewhere. For example, the questions you compose for an interview or a survey will likely target your unique interest in the topic. Similarly, to test a particular hypothesis, you can design your own experiment.

Disadvantages: Some primary sources, such as eyewitness accounts, may be too close to the subject, lacking a critical distance. Others, such as interviews, surveys, and experiments, are time consuming to prepare, administer, and analyze. Finally, unless you have been trained in accepted methodologies, your own primary research in certain fields of study may not be recognized as valid.

Consider This

Whether a source is primary, secondary, or tertiary varies by topic. The letters from a Civil War soldier would be a primary source of information about his experiences. However, topics he might include about matters outside of his direct observation (other battle stories, news reported in the camp, etc.) would be considered either secondary or even tertiary information, depending on the situation.

Your Turn Imagine you are researching how the human brain is both like and unlike a computer. Where would you go for information? List two possible primary sources. Compare your ideas with a classmate’s.

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Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are one step removed from the topic. While they can be just as valuable as primary sources, you must remember that secondary information is filtered through someone else’s perspective and may be biased.

Example Project	Possible Secondary Sources
Predicting your state’s growth over the next decade	Scholarly article projecting future census numbers Chamber of Commerce business forecast State budget plan for the next decade
Learning NASA’s space-elevator plans	Magazine article about space elevators Television special about NASA’s future
Analyzing themes in The Great Gatsby	Scholarly essays critiquing the novel Film adaptations of the novel

Advantages: Secondary sources provide a variety of expert perspectives and insights. Also, peer review usually ensures the quality of sources such as scholarly articles. Finally, researching secondary sources is more efficient than planning, conducting, and analyzing certain primary forms of research.

Disadvantages: Because secondary sources are not necessarily focused on your specific topic, you may have to dig to find applicable information. Information may be colored by the researcher’s own bias or faulty approach. Also, secondary sources can become outdated (in some fields more quickly than in others).

Tertiary Sources

Tertiary sources provide thirdhand information by reporting ideas and details from secondary sources. This does not mean that tertiary sources have no value, merely that they include the potential for an additional layer of bias.

Example Project	Possible Tertiary Sources
Predicting your state’s growth over the next decade	Report by a lobbying group, citing secondary sources Opinion-page essay in a newspaper A student essay comparing scholarly forecasts
Learning NASA’s space-elevator plans	Wikipedia.org article about space elevators Web site of a private citizen who is a space enthusiast
Analyzing themes in The Great Gatsby	Summary booklet and study notes for the novel Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Advantages: They offer a quick, easy introduction to your topic. They may point to high-quality primary and secondary sources.

Disadvantages: Because of their distance, they may oversimplify or otherwise distort a topic. By rehashing secondary sources, they may miss new insights into a topic.