secondary source

{{see also|Primary source#Classifying sources|Source text#Classification in levels}}

Making distinctions between primary and secondary symbolic sources (objects meant to communicate information) is both subjective and contextual,{{cite journal|last1=Dalton |first1=Margaret Steig |last2=Charnigo |first2=Laurie |title = Historians and Their Information Sources |url = https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/viewFile/15685/17131 |page=416 n.3, 419 n.18 |journal=College & Research Libraries |date=September 2004 }} such that precise definitions can sometimes be difficult to make.{{Harvnb|Delgadillo|Lynch|1999|p=253}}. And indeed many sources can be classified as either primary or secondary based upon the context in which they are being considered.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OX7d7u_2rF4C&pg=PA121|title=An Introduction to the Historiography of Science|last=Kragh|first=Helge|date=1989-11-24|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521389211|pages=121|language=en}} 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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.historydiscussion.net/history/important-sources-of-history-primary-and-secondary-sources/626|title=Important Sources of History (Primary and Secondary Sources)|date=2013-09-23|website=History Discussion - Discuss Anything About History|language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-06}} Other examples for which a source can be assigned both primary and secondary roles would include an obituary or a survey of several volumes of a journal to count the frequency of articles on a certain topic.{{Citation |last=Duffin |first=Jacalyn |title=History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=__oDQ6yDO7kC&pg=PA366 |page=366 |year=1999 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=0-8020-7912-1}}

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.{{Citation|last=Henige|first=David|author-link=David Henige|title=Primary Source by Primary Source? On the Role of Epidemics in New World Depopulation|journal=Ethnohistory|volume=33|issue=3|year=1986|pages=292–312, at 292|doi=10.2307/481816|jstor=481816|publisher=Duke University Press|pmid=11616953|quote=[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 process in 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.}} 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{{mdash}}but if the missing letter is later found, that certain document may then be considered "secondary".{{Harvnb|Henige|1986|p=292}}.

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 the UNISIST 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.) "[http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000648/064862eo.pdf UNISIST Study Report on the feasibility of a World Science Information System, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the International Council of Scientific Unions]". Unesco, Paris, 1971.

Some modern languages use more than one word for the English word "source". For example, German usually uses {{Lang|de|Sekundärliteratur}} ("secondary literature") for secondary sources regarding historical facts, leaving {{Lang|de|Sekundärquelle}} ("secondary source") to historiography. For example, a treatise on Goethe's Faust (e.g., on characters or motifs of the play) is called {{Lang|de|Sekundärliteratur}}.Klaus Gantert: Bibliothekarisches Grundwissen. 9. Auflage. de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-032145-6, {{DOI|10.1515/9783110321500}}, S. 76. A {{Lang|de|Sekundärquelle}} may be a source, perhaps a letter, that quotes from a lost {{Lang|de|Primärquelle}} ("primary source"){{mdash}}say a report of minutes that is not known to still exist{{mdash}}such that the report of minutes is unavailable to the researcher as the sought-after {{Lang|de|Primärquelle}}.

In general, secondary sources in a scientific context may be referred to as "secondary literature",Open University, "[https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=64085§ion=4.2 4.2 Secondary literature]", Succeeding in postgraduate study, session 5, accessed 22 March 2023. and can be self-described as review articles or meta-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 (in IMRAD style) in a scientific journal by the authors who conducted the study.{{cite book|author=Garrard, Judith |title=Health Sciences Literature Review Made Easy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSbfIcjQUcsC&pg=PA30|access-date=16 September 2012|date= 2010|publisher=Jones & Bartlett Publishers|isbn=978-1-4496-1868-1}} 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. 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.

A book 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.{{Cite web|url=http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=book%20review|title=Book reviews |access-date=September 22, 2011 |publisher=Princeton |year=2011 |author=Princeton|work=Scholarly definition document }}{{Cite web |url=http://www.lib.vt.edu/find/byformat/bookreviews.html |title=Book reviews |access-date=September 22, 2011 |publisher=Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |year=2011 |author=Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |work=Scholarly definition document |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110910082750/http://www.lib.vt.edu/find/byformat/bookreviews.html |archive-date=September 10, 2011 }} A summary of the book within a review is a secondary source.

In library and information sciences, secondary sources are generally regarded as those sources that summarize or add commentary to primary sources in the context of the particular information or idea under study.

An important use of secondary sources in the field of mathematics has been to make difficult mathematical ideas and proofs from primary sources more accessible to the public;{{Citation|last=Edwards|first=H.M.|author-link=Harold Edwards (mathematician)|title=Riemann's Zeta Function|year=2001|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|location=Mineola, New York|isbn=0-486-41740-9|page=xi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5uLAoued_dIC&q=%22primary+sources%22&pg=PR9|quote=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}} in other sciences tertiary sources are expected to fulfill the introductory role.

Secondary sources in history and humanities are usually books or scholarly journals, from the perspective of a later interpreter, especially by a later scholar. In the humanities, a peer reviewed article is always a secondary source.

The delineation of sources as primary and secondary first arose in the field of historiography, 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.Helge (1989), p. 121. In original scholarly writing, historians rely on primary sources, read in the context of the scholarly interpretations.{{Citation|last=Cipolla|publisher=W.W. Norton & Co.|title=Between Two Cultures: An Introduction to Economic History|year=1992|isbn=978-0-393-30816-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GIqRTlepwmoC&q=cipolla}}

Following the Rankean model established by German scholarship in the 19th century, historians use archives of primary sources.{{cite book|author=Frederick C. Beiser|title=The German Historicist Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQ1k6w0dFIMC&pg=PA254|year=2011|publisher=Oxford U.P.|page=254|isbn=9780199691555}} Most undergraduate research projects rely on secondary source material, with perhaps snippets of primary sources.{{cite book|author1=Charles Camic|author2=Neil Gross|author3=Michele Lamont|title=Social Knowledge in the Making|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0l7iDZY-MSoC&pg=PA107|year=2011|publisher=U. of Chicago Press|page=107|isbn=9780226092096}}

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, the headnotes of case reports, articles, and encyclopedias.{{Citation |last=Bouchoux |first=Deborah E. |title=Cite Checker: A Hands-On Guide to Learning Citation Form |url=https://archive.org/details/citecheckerhands0000bouc |page=45 |year=2000 |publisher=Thomson Delmar Learning |isbn=0-7668-1893-4}} Legal writers usually prefer to cite primary sources because only primary sources are authoritative and precedential, while secondary sources are only persuasive at best.{{Harvnb|Bouchoux|2000|p=45}}.

"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 an eye-witness at a time after the event when the fallibility of memory is an important factor."Harland, p. 39 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.

An autobiography or a memoir can be a secondary source in history or the humanities when used for information about topics other than its subject.{{cite journal |last1=Wallach |first1=Jennifer J. |title=Building a bridge of words: the literary autobiography as historical source material |journal=Biography |date=2006 |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=446–61 |jstor=23540526 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/23540526 |access-date=18 November 2024}} For example, many first-hand accounts of events in World 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.Holmes, particularly the introduction

• Original research

{{Reflist|35em}}

• Jules R. Benjamin, A Student's Guide to History (2013) {{ISBN|9781457621444}}
• Edward H. Carr, What is History? (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001) {{ISBN|9780333977019}}
• Wood Gray, Historian's handbook, a key to the study and writing of history (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1991, ©1964) {{ISBN|9780881336269}}
• Derek Harland, A Basic Course in Genealogy: Volume two, Research Procedure and Evaluation of Evidence (Bookcraft Inc, 1958) [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/60197787 WorldCat record]
• Richard Holmes, Tommy (HarperCollins, 2004) {{ISBN|9780007137510}}
• Martha C. Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (2001) {{ISBN|9780801435737}}
• Richard A. Marius and Melvin E. Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History (8th Edition) (2012) {{ISBN|9780205118601}}
• Hayden White, Metahistory: the historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) {{ISBN|9780801814693}}

{{Historiography}}

{{Libraries and library science}}

{{Commons category|Secondary Sources}}

Category:Historiography

Category:History resources

Category:Information science

Category:Library science terminology