Research Strategy - Tertiary, Secondary, & Primary
Answer
When embarking on your research, we urge you to take your time and start with tertiary resources that provide an overview or context for your research which will then help you identify and locate secondary sources which provide analysis to help you understand the event or artifact in question. Only once you’ve worked through the tertiary and secondary - approach primary sources. While primary sources lend the strongest support to your work, they also require considerable context and analysis for understanding which are provided by tertiary and secondary sources. Some resources may qualify as more than one type of resource depending on the context or how it is utilized in your argument.
Examples of library resources:
- Tertiary - research starter, general encyclopedia, textbooks class conversation, dictionaries, handbooks.
- Secondary - scholarly journals, monographs, critiques, commentary, biographies, magazines, and newspaper articles.
- Primary - survey data, interviews, photos, memoirs, speeches, artifacts, news reports, contemporary documents, original research.