Types of Sources

Primary Sources, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

What’s the difference?

A Primary Source is original research, the first place a researcher publishes his or her findings. Examples: journal articles, conference presentations, technical reports, and laboraory or field data.

Contains a detailed description of the research methodology and results.
List of references to articles that the research is based on or attempting to refute.

A Secondary Source discusses, explains, describes, analyzes, or summarizes primary sources. Examples: books and review articles.

Provides the citations (references) that will point to primary literature.

A Tertiary Source explains, describes or analyzes a group of secondary sources. Examples: annotated bibliographies, entries in encyclopedias or dictionaries.

Great place to find background information on a topic.