WRT 380 - Kaplan

Secondary sources are less easily defined than primary sources.

Generally, they are accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.

They are interpretations and evaluations of primary sources.

Secondary sources are not evidence, but rather commentary on and discussion of evidence.

However, what some define as a secondary source, others define as a tertiary source. Context is everything.

Examples include:

• Bibliographies (also considered tertiary);
• Biographical works;
• Commentaries, criticisms;
• Dictionaries, Encyclopedias (also considered tertiary);
• Histories;
• Literary criticism such as Journal articles;
• Magazine and newspaper articles;
• Monographs, other than fiction and autobiography;
• Textbooks (also considered tertiary);
• Web site (also considered primary).

Tertiary sources consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources.

• Almanacs;
• Bibliographies (also considered secondary);
• Chronologies;
• Dictionaries and Encyclopedias (also considered secondary);
• Directories;
• Fact books;
• Guidebooks;
• Indexes, abstracts, bibliographies used to locate primary and secondary sources;
• Manuals;
• Textbooks (also be secondary).