Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Resources.


Introduction

There are three different levels of resources:

  • Primary
  • Secondary
  • Tertiary

Your literature review will contain mostly peer-reviewed primary resources. Secondary and tertiary resources will help in locating these primary resources. The following sections describe and give examples of these different resources. Included are examples for the topic: The Use of Humor in the Classroom. If you need further assistance locating these resources on your topic contact a Capella librarian.

Tertiary Resources

Tertiary resources:

  • Provide background or overview information on a topic.
  • Are resources such as subject specific encyclopedias, handbooks or dictionaries.
  • Can give you different ideas for talking about and describing your topic that may be helpful when you start searching the library databases.

Example Topic: Using Humor in the Classroom

For this topic you may want to start with tertiary resources on teaching techniques to get an overview of the context of the topic. Here are some examples:

Encyclopedia:
Putnam, R.T., Feiman-Nemser, S. & Calderhead J. (2002) Teaching. In The encyclopedia of education. (Vol. 7. pp.2482-2492) New York: Macmillan Reference USA.

Handbook:
Strong, J. H., Tucker P. D. & Hindman, J. L. (2004) Handbook for qualities of effective teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Secondary

Secondary resources:

  • Evaluate either one or perhaps a group of primary resources.
  • Do not conduct a research study, but instead comment on studies that others have done.
  • Are often called a synthesis, an analysis, or a literature review of a particular subject.
  • Are great resources for finding primary resources on a subject.

Example Topic: Humor in the Classroom

Secondary Resources will lead you to additional articles on your topic. They can be found by searching article databases with the words analysis, review or synthesis. Here are some examples:

Analysis:
Sun, H.O.K, & Elder, C. (2005). Language choices and pedagogic functions in the foreign language classroom: A cross-linguistic functional analysis of teacher talk. Language Teaching Research, 9(4), 355-380.

Literature Review:
Louis, L. W. (2000). Teacher planning: A literature review. Educational Research Quarterly, 24(2), 37.

Primary Resources

Primary resources are published research studies. They include the following sections:

  1. A Research Question
  2. Brief Literature Review
  3. Description of Methodology
  4. Discussion of Results
  5. Conclusions

If an article does not have these sections, it is probably either a secondary or tertiary resource. Your dissertation literature review will contain mostly primary resources. You can find primary resources by searching article databases and limiting to peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

Example Topic: Using Humor in the Classroom

Primary resources on this topic may include research studies in curriculum, instruction, teaching techniques or the use of humor. You may also use words such as qualitative, quantitative or study. When searching in the article databases, you would limit to peer-reviewed journals when searching. Here are some examples of primary resources:

Peer Review Article:
Frymier, A., Wanzer, M., & Wojtaszczyk, A. (20081). Assessing students' perceptions of inappropriate and appropriate teacher humor. Communication Education, 57(2), 266-288.

Peer Review Article:
 Bekelja W., M., Bainbridge F. A., Wojtaszczyk, A., & Smith, T. (2006). Appropriate and inappropriate uses of humor by teachers. Communication Education, 55(2), 178-196.