Primary and Secondary Sources for Science

The following two guides provide a quick review of what types of sources are considered primary vs. secondary in science.

In the Sciences, primary sources are documents that provide full description of the original research. For example, a primary source would be a journal article where scientists describe their research on the human immune system. A secondary source would be an article commenting or analyzing the scientists' research on the human immune system

	Primary Source	Secondary Source
DEFINITIONS	Original materials that have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation by a second party.	Sources that contain commentary on or a discussion about a primary source.
TIMING OF PUBLICATION CYCLE	Primary sources tend to come first in the publication cycle.	Secondary sources tend to come second in the publication cycle.
FORMATS--depends on the kind of analysis being conducted.	Conference papers, dissertations, interviews, laboratory notebooks, patents, a study reported in a journal article, a survey reported in a journal article, and technical reports.	Review articles, magazine articles, and books
Example: Scientists studying Genetically Modified Foods.	Article in scholarly journal reporting research and methodology.	Articles analyzing and commenting on the results of original research; books doing the same

Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Source	Secondary Source
Conference Papers Correspondence Dissertations Diaries Interviews Lab Notebooks Notes Patents Proceedings Studies or Surveys Technical Reports Theses	Criticism and Interpretation Dictionaries Directories Encyclopedias Government Policy Guide to Literature Handbooks Law and Legislation Monographs Moral and Ethical Aspects Political Aspects Public Opinion Reviews Social Policy Tables

Source: The Evolution of Scientific Information (from Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, vol. 26).

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Working with Primary and Secondary Sources

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