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What is a Secondary Source?
Secondary sources analyze primary sources, using primary source materials to answer research questions. Secondary sources may analyze, criticize, interpret or summarize data from primary sources. The most common secondary resources are books, journal articles, or reviews of the literature. Secondary sources may also be primary sources. For example if someone studies the nature of literary criticism in the 19th century then a literary critque from the 19th century becomes a primary resource.
Secondary Source Examples
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Disciplines |
Secondary source examples |
|
Anthropology, Archaeology |
Reviews of the literature, critical interpretations of scholarly studies |
|
Communications, Journalism |
Interpretive journal articles, books and blogs about the communications industry, news as reviews or opinion |
|
Education, Political Science, Public Policy |
Reviews of the literature, critical interpretations of scholarly studies |
|
Fine Arts |
Critical interpretations of art and artists—biographies, reviews, recordings of live performances |
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History |
Interpretive journal articles and books |
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Language and Literature |
Literary criticism, biographies, reviews, text books |
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Psychology, Sociology, Economics |
Reviews of the literature, critical interpretations of scholarly studies |
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Sciences |
Publications about the significance of research or experiments |