There’s a difference between primary, secondary and tertiary literature. Most people don’t even know the differences between all three yet they use them constantly — especially tertiary literature. Primary literature is new data and new information that hasn’t yet been published or recorded in the scientific community, or a first person account of whatever events that might have occurred in any other community. Most sources of primary literature in science come from lab reports, autobiography, photos and conferences. Secondary sources are a second hand account of an event. An example would be scientific journal articles. This is the one academics use most often for research purposes and gathering information for their research papers. University students have a love/hate relationship with these secondary sources; they either love or hate them — there is no in between.
Tertiary sources are third person accounts of an event that has transpired. It is a compilation of the first and secondary sources into an easily digestible summary article that gives the main points of the primary/secondary data but makes it easier to understand for the everyday person. Wikipedia is an example of a tertiary source. It is often open access and allows anyone, regardless of intelligence, to edit it. This is why tertiary sources are a good starting point for research and allows anyone to get a quick grasp of their topic in question but isn’t able to be used as a reference or a citation since anyone could edit it and the information you gain from Wikipedia isn’t peer reviewed.
An example of a primary, secondary and tertiary sources are as follows for a Drosera (sundew) plant.
Primary:
A photo that I myself took of a Drosera capensis plant.
Secondary: Scientific article that has been peer reviewed and published –
(Pavlovič, A., Krausko, M., Libiaková, M., & Adamec, L. (2013). Feeding on prey increases photosynthetic efficiency in the carnivorous sundew Drosera capensis. Annals of Botany, 113(1), 69–78. doi: 10.1093/aob/mct254 https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/113/1/69/171473
Tertiary: Wikipedia article that has summarized all the information regarding the Drosera species. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosera
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 