Inscholarship, asecondary source[1][2] is adocument or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with aprimary, ororiginal, source of the information being discussed. A primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation or it may be a document created by such a person.
A secondary source is one that gives information about a primary source. In a secondary source, the original information is selected, modified and arranged in a suitable format. Secondary sources involvegeneralization,analysis, interpretation, orevaluation of the original information.
The most accurate classification for any given source is not always obvious. "Primary" and "secondary" are relative terms, and some sources may be classified as primary or secondary, depending on how they are used.[3][4][5][6]
A third level, thetertiary source, such as anencyclopedia ordictionary, resembles a secondary source in that it contains analysis, but a tertiary source has a different purpose: it aims to elaborate a broad introductory overview of the topic at hand.[1][7]
Making distinctions betweenprimary andsecondarysymbolic sources (objects meant to communicate information) is both subjective and contextual,[8] such that precise definitions can sometimes be difficult to make.[9] And indeed many sources can be classified as either primary or secondary based upon the context in which they are being considered.[10] For example, if in careful study a historical text discusses certain old documents to the point of disclosing a new historical conclusion, then that historical text may now be considered a primary source for the new conclusion, but it is still a secondary source as regarding the old documents.[11] Other examples for which a source can be assigned both primary and secondary roles would include anobituary or a survey of several volumes of a journal to count the frequency of articles on a certain topic.[12]
Further, whether a source is regarded as primary or secondary in a given context may change over time, depending upon the past and present states of knowledge within the field of study.[13] For example, if a certain document refers to the contents of a previous but undiscovered letter, that document may be considered "primary", because it is the closest known thing to an original source—but if the missing letter is later found, that certain document may then be considered "secondary".[14]
Attempts to map or model scientific and scholarly communications need the concepts of primary, secondary and further "levels" of classification. One such model is provided by the United Nations as theUNISIST model of information dissemination. Within such a model, source classification concepts are defined in relation to each other, and acceptance of a particular way of defining the concepts for classification are connected to efficiently using the model. (Note:UNISIST is the United Nations International Scientific Information System; it is a model of a social system for communications between knowledge producers, knowledge users, and their intermediaries. The system also comprises institutions such as libraries, research institutes, and publishers.)[15]
Somemodern languages use more than one word for the English word "source". For example,German usually usesSekundärliteratur ("secondary literature") for secondary sources regarding historical facts, leavingSekundärquelle ("secondary source") tohistoriography. For example, atreatise onGoethe'sFaust (e.g., on characters or motifs of the play) is calledSekundärliteratur.[16] ASekundärquelle may be a source, perhaps a letter, that quotes from a lostPrimärquelle ("primary source")—say a report of minutes that is not known to still exist—such that the report of minutes is unavailable to the researcher as the sought-afterPrimärquelle.
In general, secondary sources in a scientific context may be referred to as "secondary literature",[17] and can be self-described asreview articles ormeta-analysis.
Primary source materials are typically defined as "original research papers written by the scientists who actually conducted the study." An example of primary source material is the Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusions sections of a research paper (inIMRAD style) in a scientific journal by the authors who conducted the study.[18] In some fields, a secondary source may include a summary of the literature in the introduction of a scientific paper, a description of what is known about a disease or treatment in a chapter in a reference book, or a synthesis written to review available literature.[18] A survey of previous work in the field in a primary peer-reviewed source is secondary source information. This allows secondary sourcing of recent findings in areas where full review articles have not yet been published.
Abook review that contains the judgment of the reviewer about the book is a primary source for the reviewer's opinion, and a secondary source for the contents of the book.[19][20] A summary of the book within a review is a secondary source.
Inlibrary and information sciences, secondary sources are generally regarded as those sources that summarize or add commentary toprimary sources in the context of the particular information or idea under study.[1][2]
An important use of secondary sources in the field ofmathematics has been to make difficult mathematical ideas and proofs from primary sources more accessible to the public;[21] in other sciencestertiary sources are expected to fulfill the introductory role.
Secondary sources in history and humanities are usuallybooks orscholarly journals, from the perspective of a later interpreter, especially by a later scholar. In the humanities, apeer reviewed article is always a secondary source.The delineation of sources as primary and secondary first arose in the field ofhistoriography, as historians attempted to identify and classify the sources of historical writing. In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine the independence and reliability of sources.[22] In original scholarly writing, historians rely on primary sources, read in the context of the scholarly interpretations.[23]
Following theRankean model established by German scholarship in the 19th century, historians usearchives of primary sources.[24] Most undergraduate research projects rely on secondary source material, with perhaps snippets of primary sources.[25]
In the legal field, source classification is important because the persuasiveness of a source usually depends upon its history. Primary sources may include cases, constitutions,statutes, administrative regulations, and other sources of binding legal authority, while secondary legal sources may include books, theheadnotes ofcase reports,articles, andencyclopedias.[26] Legal writers usually prefer to cite primary sources because only primary sources are authoritative andprecedential, while secondary sources are onlypersuasive at best.[27]
"A secondary source is a record or statement of an event or circumstance made by a non-eyewitness or by someone not closely connected with the event or circumstances, recorded or stated verbally either at or sometime after the event, or by aneye-witness at a time after the event when the fallibility of memory is an important factor."[28] Consequently, according to this definition, a first-hand account written long after the event "when the fallibility of memory is an important factor" is a secondary source, even though it may be the first published description of that event.
Anautobiography or amemoir can be a secondary source in history or the humanities when used for information about topics other than its subject.[29] For example, many first-hand accounts of events inWorld War I written in the post-war years were influenced by the then prevailing perception of the war, which was significantly different from contemporary opinion.[30]
[T]he distinction is not a sharp one. Since a source is only a source in a specific historical context, the same source object can be both a primary or secondary source according to what it is used for.
[T]he same document can be a primary or a secondary source depending on the particular analysis the historian is doing,
[A] source may be primary or secondary, depending on what the researcher is looking for.
[T]he term 'primary' inevitably carries a relative meaning insofar as it defines those pieces of information that stand in closest relationship to an event or processin the present state of our knowledge. Indeed, in most instances, the very nature of a primary source tells us that it is actually derivative.…[H]istorians have no choice but to regard certain of the available sources as 'primary' since they are as near to truly original sources as they can now secure.
The purpose of a secondary source is to make the primary sources accessible to you. If you can read and understand the primary sources without reading this book, more power to you. If you read this book without reading the primary sources you are like a man who carries a sack lunch to a banquet
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