In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed; a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person.
Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information. Primary and secondary are relative terms, and some sources may be classified as primary or secondary, depending on how it is used. An even higher level, the tertiary source, such as an encyclopedia or dictionary, resembles a secondary source in that it contains analysis, but attempts to provide a broad introductory overview of a topic.
Read more about Secondary Source: Classification
Famous quotes containing the words secondary and/or source:
“A man may be defeated by his own secondary successes.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!... eternal fountain of our feelings!—’tis here I trace thee—and this is thy divinity which stirs within me ...—all comes from thee, great—great SENSORIUM of the world!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)