Secondary source
In scholarship, a secondary source[1][2] is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary, or original, source of the information being discussed. A primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation or it may be a document created by such a person.
Not to be confused with Secondary sector of the economy.
A secondary source is one that gives information about a primary source. In a secondary source, the original information is selected, modified and arranged in a suitable format. Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information.
The most accurate classification for any given source is not always obvious. Primary and secondary are relative terms, and some sources may be classified as primary or secondary, depending on how they are used.[3][4][5][6] A third level, the tertiary source, such as an encyclopedia or dictionary, resembles a secondary source in that it contains analysis, but a tertiary source has a different purpose; it aims to elaborate a broad introductory overview of the topic at hand.[1][7]
Classification of sources[edit]
Information can be interpreted from a wide variety of found objects, but source classification for primary or secondary status, etc., is applicable only to symbolic sources, which are those objects meant to communicate information, either publicly or privately, to some person, known or unknown. Typical symbolic sources include written documents such as letters, notes, receipts, ledgers, manuscripts, reports, or public signage, or graphic art, etc,; but do not include, for example, bits of broken pottery or scraps of food excavated from a midden—and this regardless of how much information can be extracted from an ancient trash heap, or how little can be extracted from a written document.[8]
Making distinctions between primary and secondary symbolic sources is both subjective and contextual,[9] such that precise definitions can sometimes be difficult to make.[10] And indeed many sources can be classified as either primary or secondary based upon the context in which they are being considered.[8] 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.[11] 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.[12]
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.[13] 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—but if the missing letter is later found, that certain document may then be considered "secondary".[14]
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.) [15]
Some modern languages use more than one word for the English word "source". German usually uses Sekundärliteratur ("secondary literature") for secondary sources regarding historical facts, leaving Sekundärquelle ("secondary source") to historiography. A Sekundärquelle may be a source, perhaps a letter, that quotes from a lost Primärquelle ("primary source")—say a report of minutes that is not known to still exist—such that the report of minutes is unavailable to the researcher as the sought-after Primärquelle.