Everyone already knows that I always chase down any tertiary & secondary sources to get back to the primary source to make sure that any hypotheses I might make based on them will stand up to academic scrutiny in my own writing.
About 10% of the time I end up wondering if a particular writer was on drugs or having hallucinations when they were writing because the sources they used have zero bearing on their written work.
Well. It finally happened as everything comes full circle.
I was doing some random searches about lace tags and found a blog that was showing ^the correct way to make them^ and they referenced my 2017 paper on the subject (notice the Sarcastrophe marks?).
The webpage was cringe-worthy at best. WTF was this person thinking? I basically handed them 113 pages of facts and not one bit of it made it to the webpage.
I am not sharing the link because I am not that type of person. Just know it was not well written and the conclusions, and instructions were not very well thought out. I read the page and when I got to the bottom I saw the reference to my paper. I was shocked that they could read this, if they did, and then write a blog post that included absolutely wrong information.
It is for this reason that I am sharing some basics on defining primary, secondary and tertiary sources.
Primary sources provide first-hand observations or direct evidence about a subject that is under investigation.
They are created by witnesses or recorders at the time of the event. They have not been filtered through further interpretation or evaluation. Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study.
Primary sources may include
- Original Documents: diaries, speeches, letters, interview transcripts, news footage, autobiographies, reports, census records, data from an experiment
- Creative Works: poetry, plays, novels, music scores, films, paintings
- Objects: clothing, buildings, tools, furniture
Secondary sources are works that analyze, assess or interpret a historical event, era or phenomenon.
Secondary sources may include
- journal articles
- editorial articles,
- literacy criticism
- book reviews
- biographies
Tertiary Sources are those used to identify and locate primary and secondary sources.
Tertiary sources presents summaries or condensed versions of materials usually with references to primary or secondary sources. They can be a good place to look up facts or get a general overview of a subject, it is my experience to be suspicious of these and to always drill down to find the secondary sources.
Tertiary sources may include
- Reference Works: encyclopedias, textbooks, abstracts
- Lists or Collections: bibliographies, finding aids
- Search Tools: library database or catalog, indexes
In my work, I always drill down to primary sources whenever possible. That way there is no question about my findings or hypothesis.
The information on this page has come from many different webpages and sources. All of them agree but are worded slightly differently.
