Secondary source

How it is used

Secondary sources are useful for getting an overview of a topic and finding key studies, but for important claims writers are expected to go back to the original. When you cite a study you only read about in a secondary source, you use a secondary citation.

Example sentences

1. Review articles are secondary sources, but they can lead you to the key primary studies.

2. Your literature review relies too heavily on secondary sources.

Common collocations

• rely on secondary sources
• secondary source material
• use secondary sources
• a reliable secondary source

Related terms

• primary sourceAn original document or record created at the time of the events or by the people who did the research, such as a letter, archive file, dataset or original study.
• secondary citationA citation of a source you have not read yourself but know about only because another author described or quoted it.
• systematic reviewA review that uses a clear, pre-planned and repeatable method to find, select and evaluate all relevant studies on a specific question.
• literature reviewA critical summary of what has already been published on a topic, showing the main ideas, debates and gaps that a new study responds to.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• secondary source · History

More terms: Literature Review

• literature
• research gap
• theoretical framework
• seminal
• synthesize
• draw on
• build on
• database
• meta-analysis
• body of literature
• consensus
• critique