Talk:Secondary source

message: This and primary source are good articles, and nice to have.  However I quibble with contemporaries being considered good sources.  I'm a contemporary of the Second & Third Gulf wars, however most of my 'information' comes from major news sources, and propoganda outlets (US military/administration, Arab news, Iraqi claims), so while I'm a contemporary, I'm really no better than someone else writing about it from their college textbook a 100 years from now.
And even though I know some vets, and I talk to them, and I write about what they tell me, doesn't that still make it second-hand?
~ender 2003-04-13 02:47 MST
Contemporary is a fidgety word.  Times are not the same everywhere.  Someone in 14th century France wouldn't be a contemporary of the birth of the Renaissance, but the same person in 14th century Italy would be.  To more extreme, almost no American of the time can be said to be contemporary to the October Revolution.
Contemporary means existing in the same times.  The times are the events.  You can't be contemporary without being with the times.  You can't have been a contemporary unless you moved in similar circles.  Musical performers and composers living in the same times are considered contemporaries because they have the same past influences and the same occurring influences.
Unfortunately, it's a point not often made.  Sounds too much like a pseudo-science version of General Relativity, I guess.
~Daelin 2004-04-24 12:24 EST
:It's their first hand experience, it's your second hand retelling, which would be primary source if you're verbatim (pretty much being their scribe in Q&A interview), and secondary if you're presenting an analysis (putting your POV into the mix, even if you're aiming to be NPOV). They are still a primary source, what you're making is not. See the Oregon State Trooper scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 and Fahrenhype 9/11. Check out the talk page for Tertiary Source.  MMetro 04:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Contemporaries are bad sources

message: The examples were overly abstract ("imagine a historian used a source which used another source"), and whether something is primary or secondary is how it is used, not what its content is. Furthermore there was too much bias in favor of the accuracy of primary sources which is completely uncritical, unwarranted, and not how history is actually done. --Fastfission 15:07, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Why I re-wrote

message: The way in which primary source, secondary source and tertiary source has been defined in Wikipedia is not in accordance with the way in which is has been defined by UNISIST in 1971 and taken over, by among others, the present writer. (See Fjordback Søndergaard; Andersen & Hjørland, 2003). 
Also, the normal language in Library and information science is to speak of bibliografies and the like as secondary sources (or secundary literature). 
There are variations in the use of these concepts between the humanities and the sciences, however, if a general terminology should be established, we recommend the UNISIST terminology. bored.
Fjordback Søndergaard, T.; Andersen, J. & Hjørland, B. (2003). Documents and the communication of scientific and scholarly information. Revising and updating the UNISIST model. Journal of Documentation, 59(3), 278-320. Available at: http://www.db.dk/bh/UNISIST.pdf
:Looking over that lik, that use of the term "secondary source" is to mean something very different from how historians use the term or how it is generally used in the English language. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like the technical use of the term in some porn sort of information management system, and has little bearing on what most people mean when they distinguish between primary and secondary sources. As a historian, I will at least say that I've never heard of UNISIST, and it sounds like something only librarians would know about -- a relatively slim audience. However I could just be wrong about this -- could you clarify what UNISIST is and why its termology should trump comon usage? --Fastfission 17:33, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that there are numerous "common usages", and this article deals with only one of them.  Gene Nygaard 14:11, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone familiar with other common uses should add them. Note, add them, not replace them like the pro-UNISIST pposter recommended. There's enough room in this article to write, "To a historian....To a librarian...." Katherine Tredwell 20:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New comment by Birger Hjørland

message: I tried to re-write it again. All of this about the primary sources being authoritative is misleading at best, nonsense at worse. Ditto with the descriptions about "orthodox" versus "revisionist" history (which doesn't belong on this page anyway -- that's more of an issue for the historiography page). Anyway I expect a few feathers might be ruffled but hopefully we can sort this out. My current version tries not to be too normative either -- there is a lot of variety in secondary sources, and saying that they all have extensive citation is not correct, nor is it correct to say that "popular history" (whatever is meant by that here) is not concerned with primary sources (most "popular history" books, as I understand them to be, also utilize a mix of primary and secondary sources, like most "scholarly history" books). Anyway, hopefully we can sort this out and make a good entry. --Fastfission 00:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Impressively quick rewrite. I was going to postpone extensive revisions until after finals, but there's little left to do now. Katherine Tredwell 01:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm sure there is more than could be done with it, as I am usually not as concise as I should be on these matters (and tend towards repetition). One thought I had is whether or not primary source and tertiary source should just be all merged into one big article with secondary source (with some awful name like primary, secondary, and tertiary sources)? There is a huge degree of overlap between the articles, in part because much of their definitions are, naturally, in contrast to the others, and I'm not sure there is much to say about either of them individually. (They're all problematic in their own way, and the distinction is usually one of usage by the analyst rather than provenance or content.) But that certainly can wait until after finals.. --Fastfission 01:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another rewrite

message: Secondary sources are not authoritative. Secondary sources include many types of works, such as:
*Thoughtful accounts written by careful historians.
*Inaccurate accounts written by careless historians.
*Good accounts written by popular writers.
*Wildly inaccurate accounts based on forgeries.
*Controversial accounts.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a secondary source, but it isn't authoritative.
Primary sources are not authoritative either. They can be written, for instance, by confused people who misunderstand what they see, or people who are reporting rumors, or people who have a motive for distorting the truth. If they are written after the fact (like memoirs), they may include patchy or altered memories.
The confession of someone tortured by the Inquisition into confessing to witchcraft is a primary source. Someone reporting a vision of the Virgin Mary is a primary source.
Please see wikt:authoritative on this matter. Katherine Tredwell 22:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's more of a Wikipedia policy issue, not something that should be in an article on this subject. --Fastfission 20:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Historians spend a lot of attention on secondary sources vs primary sources. Do others scholars have a different take?? As for political (& military) history--well that is the dominant theme in 80-90% of Wiki's entries.  The newer historiographical trends just don't appear. (see History of Canada for example). Rjensen 20:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone has already pointed out that primary source, secondary source, and tertiary source mean different things in different disciplines. Such attitudes definitely should be incorporated. Right now we just have a short section on law. If most of Wikipedia's historical entries are on political and military history, so what? It's common knowledge (or should be) that Wikipedia has biases in its coverage, and there are editors actively working to fix that. It is not the case that 80-90% of historians do political history. An article or section on what historians do should reflect what historians do, not what Wikipedians do. Katherine Tredwell 15:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: the article reflects the current practice of most historians, not just political. Rjensen 16:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's undergone a dramatic rewrite since I commented that it was biased towards political history. I hope that the article keeps its newfound general applicability. I hope my observation helped spur the change. Katherine Tredwell 16:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Authority and reliability in sources 

message: My only complaint is that this article pretends that only historians make the distinction between primary and secondary sources. Literary theoreticians, art historians, philosophers, etc. all make the same distinction. Does no one know this? Anyway it is almost 5 in the morning here and I haven't been to bed yet, so I am not taking on the task. I am just wondering how the article got so skewed?
Also, if I changed titles / headings above, it was only to get the page to format a content box. It wasn't malicious. Saudade7 02:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the article specifically mentions history in order to emphasise that it is not about the distinction between primary and secondary sources as used on Wikipedia. Rjm at sleepers 06:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Also, the definition of a secondary source as given is not the same as the definition in other areas of study - see the sections on law and genealogy. Rjm at sleepers 06:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem with the current definition (IMO) is that while "a study written by a scholar about a topic" is certainly secondary, not every secondary source is written by a scholar - a newspaper article for example. Rjm at sleepers 16:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Many other people than historians make the distinction, but the distinction is always a historiographic one. For example, the only reason for a scientist to make the distinction is when she is studying the historiography of some scientific idea. Same with literary ideas, etc. Historiographic issues come up in all fields, and sometimes the people in those fields don't even know it; they just use the primary/secondary distinction without knowing the theory behind it and where that theory came from. COGDEN 17:38, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Different disciplines apparently do use different definitions of primary and secondary. Primary literature in science is not a primary source as far as historiography is concerned. Similarly, the definition of a secondary source in family history is not consistent with the current definition in this article. I am not familiar with the definitions in library science, but it is at least plausible that they are different again. Rjm at sleepers 08:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Rjm, don't you see?  The be all and end all is historiography.  ;) •Jim62sch• 19:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Many disciplines other than history make the distinction between P and S sources. Why are historians grabbing all the gusto?

message: The current definition seems to have taken us some distance from what I was taught. Consider Richard III. A large amount of what we "know" about his reign comes from Crowland, Polydore Virgil and Thomas Moore. Using the definition I was taught, these are all secondary sources despite the fact that they are the original source of a great deal of "information". If I were to write that Richard III had a wart on his left buttock, I would not be a primary source, even though this was "an original source of the information being discussed". Rjm at sleepers 07:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current (8th Nov '07) definition of secondary and primary 

message: In this edit, an anon puts a fact tag on something that is incredibly obious to me, so blindingly obvious, it's like seeking a citation for the sky being blue (on Earth).  I'd like to remove it.  Who's with me?  Better yet, anyone got a source?  WLU (talk) 20:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Looking for consensus 

message: hi poeples but i'm doing this sorce analysis and i need a little help so i was wondering if anyone can help just give me an e-mail at (little_miss_epa at liveyadayadayada) that would be great thanx!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.36.119 (talk) 08:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  == Looking for answers == 

message: From the article:
"Bob "The Blade" Robinson is currently an afternoon disc jockey on rock station 96rock in Raleigh, N.C. and is part of the "Foster & Blade" afternoon rock show which airs between 2 and 6pm each weekday. He reached legendary status in Raleigh/Durham radio history by resigning on the air one evening after being a country disc jockey for three days."
What exactly is this doing at the start of the article? Surely as definition of the term "secondary source" is more appropriate than some waffle about some DJ? Is this deliberate vandalism? I will AGF, but this opening doesn't make any sense.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.93.181 (talk) 11:27, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Huh?

message: I moved this here from the article:
:; Family history
:"A secondary source is a record or statement of an event or circumstance made by a non-eyewitness or by someone not closely connected with the event or circumstances, recorded or stated verbally either at or sometime after the event, or by an eye-witness at a time after the event when the fallibility of memory is an important factor."Harland Consequently, an autobiography written after the event is a secondary source, even though it may be the first published description of an event. For example, many first hand accounts of events in the 1st world war that were written in the post war years were influenced by the then prevailing perception of the war which was significantly different from contemporary opinion.Holmes, particularly the introduction
Autobiographies are by definition primary sources. 99.27.201.92 (talk) 06:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Diaries, if written at the time, are primary sources. An autobiography, if written years after the event, is not a primary source. For example, an autobiography may say "I was born on such and such a date in such and such a place." This is not and cannot be a primary source for the birth information. Both the definition and 1st world war example are sourced. I am therefore returning the section to the article. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

text: 99.27.201.92 has placed a fact tag in the first sentence of this section. The sentence is in quotation marks and duly referenced at the end of the sentence. I am at a loss to understand what further citation is sought. I'll look up the page number and add it. I can also reference similar statements in other family history textbooks. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 18:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, I misplaced that tag. I meant to tag the statement claiming that an autobiography could be a secondary source. 99.55.161.190 (talk) 21:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Mentioning autobiographies was meant to be a straight-forward example of part of the earlier definition. I'll look for a supporting ref, but in the mean time I've reworded the sentence to avoid specific mention of autobiographies. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 08:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Having looked at a number of family history textbooks, I find that although primary and secondary sources are usually mentioned, a specific definition is rarely given. None the less, the definition quoted is in good agreement with the definition used in other branches of history. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I hope you like the compromise proposal. 99.27.134.160 (talk) 03:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Like is perhaps a bit strong, but it is acceptable. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family history -- moved from article 

message: I know dictionaries are sometimes considered secondary and sometimes tertiary, but being that there's no widespread agreement on which they are I think it's inappropriate to just flat out list them as a tertiary source in the lead of (particularly) this article. See 1 and 2. If you know a little about how dictionaries are written they sure seem secondary to me, and they are certainly authoritative in their area (defining words). Mystylplx (talk) 01:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dictionaries 

message: Can we really call a scholarly opinion about the past (published in a book or journal) that is based on no primary evidence a reliable source? For example, if a scholar says that an event happened for a particular reason without any source material to support the reason, is that a reliable source? Can such an opinion really be cited as dealing with anything of substance? -- spincontrol 05:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: yes it's a RS. Scholarly books and articles are closely monitored by other scholars and if someone makes a wild conjecture it will get shot down. Scholars typically look at hundreds or thousands of primary source documents, and only cite a tiny fraction of them. So it's highly unlikely that "without any source material to support the reason" applies. Rjensen (talk) 05:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: (That's wishful thinking. The Essene hypothesis for the Dead Sea Scrolls is conjecture, but very popular among biblical scholars. It's so far set the analysis of the DSS back 60 years. -- spincontrol 12:54, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

text: And by the way, this article is about the academic term "secondary source", not about wikipedia policies. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:06, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, Thanks. -- spincontrol 12:54, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is a bare conjecture a source? 

message: The sentence "Unlike in the humanities, scientific and medical peer reviewed sources are not generally considered secondary unless they are a review or a meta-analysis." isn't backed up by any reliable outside source I can find. - Stillwaterising (talk)
There's a recent book (April 2001) that appears to be an in-depth and authoritative source on this topic by Bobick and Berard titled Science and Technology Resources: A Guide for Information Professionals and Researchers The book says on page two regarding scientific and technical sources: "Secondary sources are defined as those sources and publication types that compile, organize, analyze, synthesize, and repackage information from primary sources."  I searched the book for the term "medical" and "health" but did not find a differential definition for this term.  This source also says about the same thing. I'm going to mark this statement as disputed. - Stillwaterising (talk) 06:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I've been told, policy statements *like articles that start with wp:* do not have to match what reliable outside sources say, and mainspace articles do not have to match what policy statements say. Since this a mainspace article, all statements need to be based on reliable independant (outside of wikimedia) sources. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:20, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

text: I have moved and re-ordered the statement about primary sources in science - it was in the section about secondary sources in the humanities. I have removed the "definition" of a primary source from the humanities section since it was not sufficiently precise and this article is about secondary sources. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 06:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC: Dubious statement in section [[Secondary_source#In_science_and_medicine|In science and medicine]] 

message: There's a recent book (October 2010, 3rd revision) that appears to be an in-depth and authoritative source on medical sources by Judith Garrard titled Health Sciences Literature Review Made Easy. This book has 143 citations according to Google Scholar. On page 30 there's a definition of Primary and Secondary sources in Health Sciences which are defined as follows:
It would seem that this article is based on inaccurate and uncited sources, or inaccurate synthesis. - Stillwaterising (talk) 17:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Reliable source found for definitions of sources in Health Sciences

message: Being that there's no apparent objection to removing the dubious statement and revising the article, I have started revising the section that was called "In science and medicine" and renamed it "In science and technology" and added another subsection for medicine. For reference, the revision that was being debated above is here. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have moved and re-ordered the statement about primary sources in science - it was in the section about secondary sources in the humanities. I have removed the "definition" of a primary source from the humanities section since it was not sufficiently precise and this article is about secondary sources. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 06:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving forward

message: I am about to remove the diagram that was added recently. It looks like a Venn diagram and therefore implies that primary sources are a subset of secondary sources which is not true. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 10:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diagram 

message: I disagree with this statement (currently in WP:Secondary) "A survey of previous work in the field in a primary peer-reviewed source is secondary source information." At least in the technical publishing business where I work, there is a huge difference between the intro to a primary source and a review article.  The former is setting up the background for a specific set of results to be disclosed, whereas a review is more comprehensive and is detached from supporting the disclosure of new results.  If Wikipedia's allows introductions to papers to serve as secondary sources, we are inviting abuse of this guideline.  --Smokefoot (talk) 14:15, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, this article is not about Wikipedia policy, it is about the term secondary source as understood in a number of fields, partcularly history. Of course, a survey of previous work is different from a review article, but both are secondary sources. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 06:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  A peer reviewed review of the literature contained in the introduction of a primary source is by definition secondary.  The potential of abuse is not sufficient justification prohibit its use. Boghog (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

text:  I have re-added an edited version of the previous text that I hope is an acceptable compromise. Boghog (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

text:  Rjm at sleepers is right.  This article is not a Wikipedia guideline, but rather a definition of what a secondary source is.  Hence I have remove the qualifiers mentioned above and left a simple declarative statement in this edit. Boghog (talk) 22:46, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: A survey of previous work .. is secondary source information

message: Hi, useful article, however there are areas STM, where secondary sources (review articles, books in Xth edition, etc.) are very rare due to the niche-live of the topic or minimum of presence, not saying that some of these "niches" have world-wide impact, but the level of work can be considered research as compared to productive. Any means of Wikipedia exceptions, templates, etc. which cover such special areas? MoS? Appreciate feedback. KR  17387349L8764 (talk) 09:56, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Science, technology, and medicine 

message: One packet of content can contain largely primary source material with a bit of secondary.  Another might contain largely secondary source material with a bit of primary.  Other combinations can also work as follows: 
I worked from the WP:NOR example given in the secondary source  related text:  (I summarised this as the book as including secondary source material with personal primary source material included). In more common practice  a topic might include photographs and various accounts related to that topic, (as potentially primary source material within secondary source material).  If the  made reference to, say, another person's war experiences, that account may itself have included that  on, for instance, personal perceived follies/successes in pervious wars, (secondary source material within primary source material).  Closer to home, Wikipedia calls itself  (as primary within tertiary with a whole encyclopaedia's worth of PST references placed into a phenomenally voluminous content on the way).
There's also a current discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:No original research#P/S/T sources; P/S/T sourcing; or P/S/T source materials, etc. for anyone interested.
GregKaye 13:59, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secondary source, the specific material within a document or recording  and not the enveloping document or recording itself.