We live in a time were information can be accessed with ease, and with a swiftness that doesn’t always guarantee validity. This points to the importance of being able to judge and analytically assess the contents of your search results off the net. When looking for articles or journals off the net, it is important to note whether the content you’re reading is – primary, secondary, or tertiary peer-reviewed literature. The following criteria and examples, of each piece of literature, should help you in case you find yourself having a hard time distinguishing.
- What is a Primary source of literature? Primary sources of literature are sources of original work and data. In the sciences, primary sources of literature are peer-reviewed articles, based on original data, published in journals that are written by experts in the field. And subsequently reviewed by other experts, before collectively agreeing on the literature being presented. For example – https://rdcu.be/b105d is a peer-reviewed article from the journal Plant Ecology. The authors published are doing original work in a novel approach towards tree restoration.
Arthur F. Link, Linda M. K. Johnson and Ryan M. Utz, To manage or not? Successful native tree seedling restoration despite a dense, invasive shrub, Berberis thunbergii, Plant Ecology, 10.1007/s11258-019-00937-w, (2019).
- What is a Secondary source of literature? Secondary sources of literature are summaries/based on primary sources. For example – books or articles that summarize, interpret, and analyze research done by others is a secondary literature source. A good example is – https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/10.1111/1365-2664.13195
Schuster, M. J. et al. (2018) Using revegetation to suppress invasive plants in grasslands and forests. Journal of Applied Ecology 55 (5) p.2362–2373.
This is a secondary review of primary literature pieces that evaluate the validity of revegetation in woodland forests, and is published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. This should give a good illustration on the main differences between primary and secondary sources.
- What is a Tertiary source of literature? Tertiary sources of literature summarize literature from various secondary sources, into easy-to-understand language. Textbooks are a great example of tertiary sources that most of us are familiar with. For example – Raven, Peter H., Ray Franklin Evert, and Susan E. Eichhorn. Biology of Plants. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co, 2005. This is a textbook which is a tertiary source of literature, were it summarizes other secondary sources on a variety of plant biology topics.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 
One thought on “A guide to distinguishing between Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary literature.”