Journal or magazine articles usually provide specific information on a very narrow point or idea. Most books and journal articles go through a rigorous review process before they are accepted for publication. Therefore, students can be confident in using information found there. However, students must remember that the Internet is not carefully and rigorously reviewed the way that books and articles are. Therefore, to make the best use of the amazing resources available through the Internet, students must learn to search effectively and judge the worth of resulting information.
Primary sources are direct or firsthand sources of information.
These sources can be letters, memoirs, newspaper accounts of an event, official records or histories, or a person's own writings or texts. In science, primary material also refers to data gathered by direct observation or experimentation. Secondary sources are interpretive information derived from primary material. These sources can be be biographies, journal or magazine articles, histories, or newspaper articles that are not firsthand accounts. Just as there are criteria to evaluate cars or running shoes, there are standards to measure the quality of information.