| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Scholarly |
Written for an academic audience and usually by someone with educational credentials. Scholarly works are not necessarily peer-reviewed. Example: An article published in a journal written for experts in the discipline. |
| Peer-Reviewed |
The source has gone through a peer-review process where the content has been vetted by another expert in the discipline. Items that go through this additional review process are usually seen as high quality. Example: An article written in a journal that has a peer-review process. |
| Popular |
The item is written for a general audience where specialty knowledge is not needed. Example: Magazine article |
| Primary Source* |
Original research, thoughts, creations, or observations. Primary sources can be very credible as evidence. If you are researching a literary work, the text itself is considered a primary source. Example: literary works, diaries, opinion pieces, interviews, autobiographies, etc. |
| Secondary Source* |
Research that summarizes and synthesizes primary sources or other secondary sources around a given topic. Example: An article written about a literary work. |
| Tertiary Source |
Summarizes information around a topic and usually references both primary and secondary sources. Example: Encyclopedia. |
*Whether a source is primary or secondary will depend on how you intend to use it. For example, if you are using an article about a work to provide background information, that's secondary. But if you are analyzing the article to study the scholar's approach and argument, it would be a primary.
For more information, check out this video from the Santiago Canyon College Library:
