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Sarah Naomi Campbell| scampbell@jwu.edu | 401-598-5019
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Your assignment requires that you find a primary research article, but what is a primary research article? Let's watch a quick video to find out.
Now, let's practice by evaluating a few articles, to see if they are primary sources.
This is a group challenge! Your challenge is to find a primary research article, using the library's databases. Fill out the handout provided your group, and be prepared to share out what you found. You will have about 20 minutes for this challenge. Let's get started!
A great place to begin your research for the Reference Evaluation is through the Articles tab on the Library's homepage. It will default to the Everything tab. Choose Articles tab.
Make sure you click Advanced Search, and then, enter your keywords, and click Search.
Make sure you choose Full Text and Peer Reviewed. This will make sure you can read the articles online right away, as we own them, rather than ask other colleges to send you their articles.
Next, look for the Methodology section on the left hand side - look for "Empirical" or "Quantitative" or "Qualitative" to ensure you find a primary source.
Primary research articles can be identified by a commonly used format. If an article contains the following elements, you can count on it being a primary research article. Look for sections titled:
Methods (sometimes with variations, such as Materials and Methods)
Results (usually followed with charts and statistical tables)
Discussion
Let's take a quiz to see what we learned!
Go to www.Kahoot.it
A great place to begin your research for the Reference Evalutation is through the Articles tab on the Library's homepage. It will default to the Everything tab. Choose Articles tab.
Here's a Sample Paper In APA Format to walk you through how to write your own paper in APA format.
Did you know you can copy and paste citations if you use the library's databases?
1. Save time - look for the "Cite" Button or " " icon.
2. Scroll to the style you need (MLA, APA)
3. Copy and paste the full citation into your paper
Ta Da! You're done! Well, almost. Sometimes weird formatting issues happen, so always double check your work.
Need help with in-text citations or more complicated citations? Use the OWL! It's super easy, and totally simple. This is also a really good time to make an appointment with a writing tutor to make sure your paper is totally perfect and all your citations are good to go.
It's often difficult to tell the difference between original research articles and review articles. Here are some explanations and tips that may help:
"Review articles are often as lengthy or even longer that original research articles. What the authors of review articles are doing in analysing and evaluating current research and investigations related to a specific topic, field, or problem. They are not primary sources since they review previously published material. They can be of great value for identifying potentially good primary sources, but they aren't primary themselves.
Primary research articles can be identified by a commonly used format. If an article contains the following elements, you can count on it being a primary research article. Look for sections titled:
Methods (sometimes with variations, such as Materials and Methods)
Results (usually followed with charts and statistical tables)
Discussion
You can also read the abstract to get a good sense of the kind of article that is being presented.
If it is a review article instead of a research article, the abstract should make that pretty clear. If there is no abstract at all, that in itself may be a sign that it is not a primary resource. Short research articles, such as those found in Science and similar scientific publications that mix news, editorials, and forums with research reports, however, may not include any of those elements. In those cases look at the words the authors use, phrases such as "we tested" and "in our study, we measured" will tell you that the article is reporting on original research."
*Taken from Ithica College Libraries
Primary and Secondary Sources for Science:
In the Sciences, primary sources are documents that provide full description of the original research. For example, a primary source would be a journal article where scientists describe their research on the human immune system. A secondary source would be an article commenting or analyzing the scientists' research on the human immune system.
Primary Source |
Secondary Source |
|
DEFINITIONS |
Original materials that have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation by a second party. |
Sources that contain commentary on or a discussion about a primary source. |
TIMING OF PUBLICATION CYCLE |
Primary sources tend to come first in the publication cycle. |
Secondary sources tend to come second in the publication cycle. |
FORMATS--depends on the kind of analysis being conducted. |
Conference papers, dissertations, interviews, laboratory notebooks, patents, a study reported in a journal article and technical reports. |
Review articles, magazine articles, and books |
Example: Scientists studying Genetically Modified Foods. |
Article in scholarly journal reporting research and methodology. |
Articles analyzing and commenting on the results of original research; books doing the same |
EXAMPLES OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES
Primary Source |
Secondary Source |
|
|
Source: The Evolution of Scientific Information (from Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, vol. 26).
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