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Getting Started with Research

Three Types of Sources

In general, there are three types of resources or sources of information: primary, secondary, and tertiary.  It is important to understand these types and to know what type is appropriate for your coursework prior to searching for information.

  1. Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based, including:
    • original written works – poems, diaries, court records, interviews, surveys, and original research/fieldwork, and
    • research published in scholarly/academic journals.
  2. Secondary sources are those that describe or analyze primary sources, including:
    • reference materials – dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, and
    • books and articles that interpret, review, or sythesize original research/fieldwork.
  3. Tertiary sources are those used to organize and locate secondary and primary sources.
    • Indexes – provide citations that fully identify a work with information such as author, titles of a book, artile, and/or journal, publisher and publication date, volume and issue number and page numbers.
    • Abstracts – summarize the primary or secondary sources,
    • Databases – are online indexes that usually include abstracts for each primary or secondary resource, and may also include a digital copy of the resource.

(Mary Woodley, CSUN Oviatt Library)

Types of Primary Resources

  • General Documents
  • Newspapers
  • Advertisements
  • Photographs: visual records obtained through photography
    • Strengths: 
      • Visual records of a moment in time
      • Convey many details about people, places, objects, and events
      • Convey information about everyday life and behavior that is best communicated in visual terms (hair and clothing styles, interior design) 
      • Sometimes provide evidence of attitude
      •  Important to the study of people who did not leave many written records 
      •  Can stimulate the personal involvement of the viewer
      • Do not require fluency in a particular language to understand
      •  Can be used to stimulate the memory of people
    • Limitations:
      •  Not a complete or objective source: the image that serves as the lasting record does not equate directly with the reality of the event itself
      •  Relationship of the photographer to those being photographed often difficult to determine
      • Reflect the bias or perspective of the photographer
      • People, place, date, and the name of the photographer are often not identified.
      •  The emotions and thoughts of those involved often are not evident.
      •  Information from this kind of source is often suggestive rather than definitive. Photographs must be studied in conjunction with other evidence. One must look at many photographs and/or other source materials such as documents and oral histories to determine if the information is unusual or part of a larger pattern.
  • Ask yourself: 
    • What are your first impressions?
    • What do you see in the photograph?
      • Make a list of people, objects, activities, buildings, or animals. 
    • What can you tell about the time period?
      • Any captions? a date? Location?
      • Names of people?
      • What kind of clothing is being worn? 
      • What time of year is it? Time of day? Why do you think so?
      • Where is the photography taken? Why do you think so?
    • If there are people in the photograph, what do you think their relationship is to one another?
    • What do you think happened right before and after the photograph was taken?
    • What questions do you have about the photograph?