In the world of literature, especially in science, it is important to check and check again for nuances in an article or journal before publishing. Welcome to the world of peer reviewing! Peer review is an important process where an author’s paper is subject to the peer editing scrutiny of others in the same field in order to ensure quality of the work that is to be published. In light of this, there are three types of literature when categorizing by resource type.
- Primary literature is when raw information (information acquired first handedly) is used in the analysis, results and discussion of the literature. This type of literature is often documented as the events happen and assessed without much interpretation or commentary as the dialogue typically remains within the scope of the study. A good example is this paper by Gregory Asner, Jonathan Scurlock and Jeffrey Hicke titled Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Global synthesis of leaf area index observations: implications for ecological and remote sensing studies where the researchers conducted experiments and data analysis of raw information on the leaf area index (LAI) on their own accord.
- Secondary literature is when the conclusions are interpreted from the analysis of one or more different sources of primary literature. Primary and secondary articles are good for using as references when writing up a scientific review on a topic of interest. An example of this is and article titled Exploring patterns of forest governance quality: Insights from forest frontier communities in Zambia’s Miombo ecoregion by Hellen Nansikombia, Richard Fischerb, Gillian Kabwec, and Sven Günter where they pull data from another study to do data analysis and interpretations of the data for further discussion.
- Tertiary literature is when information is condensed and summarized, typically with reference to multiple sources of primary or secondary literature. These resources are good for looking at general information or facts on a subject topic, but usually aren’t used for reference material when writing up a paper as these sources often aren’t accredited to a single author. For example, an encyclopedia (e.g. Wikipedia) is a tertiary source. This Wikipedia page on the Canadian Shield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield) is comprehensive on general information and facts about the topic. Additionally, notice the multitude of primary and secondary references at the bottom of the page.
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***information acquired with support from https://library.madonna.edu/research/primary-secondary-and-tertiary-sources#:~:text=What%20are%20primary%2C%20secondary%2C%20and,organize%2C%20or%20compile%20other%20sources.
References:
Asner, Scurlock, J. M. O., & A. Hicke, J. (2003). Global synthesis of leaf area index observations: implications for ecological and remote sensing studies. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 12(3), 191–205. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1466-822X.2003.00026.x
Nansikombi, Fischer, R., Kabwe, G., & Günter, S. (2020). Exploring patterns of forest governance quality: Insights from forest frontier communities in Zambia’s Miombo ecoregion. Land Use Policy, 99, 104866–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104866
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 