Describe appropriate tools and search strategies to find information

Describe appropriate tools and search strategies to find information     

 

It consists of 3 main factors which is Primary, Secondary and Tertiary  sources which are I am going to talk about below.

Primary sources are:

• Contemporary Accounts of an event written by the person who witnessed or experienced it. 
   

   
• Original Documents, Unpublished – not about another document or account
  
  
• Published works - as long as they are written soon after the fact and not as historical accounts

 

 

•         A primary source is an original object or document, first-hand information.

•         Primary source is material written or produced in the time period that you may be investigating.

•         Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period.   

Primary sources include: Diaries letters, moirés, journals, speeches, manuscripts, statistical data

interviews, photographs, audio or video recordings, research reports (natural or social sciences) and original literary or theatrical works.

 

Secondary sources are:

 

•         A secondary source is something written about a primary source.

•         Secondary sources are written "after the fact" - that is, at a later date.

•         Usually the author of a secondary source will have studied the primary sources of an historical period or event and will then interpret the "evidence" found in these sources.

You can think of secondary sources as second-hand information

•         Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers, magazines, books or articles found that evaluate or criticize someone else's original research

Secondary sources also:

•         Interpret primary sources - at least one step removed from the event or phenomenon under review

•         Examination of studies that other researchers have made of a subject

•         Second Hand - conveys the experiences and opinions of others

Examples for secondary sources are usually in the form of published works, journal article, books, radio and TV documentaries.

And at the end of the class we learnt that in order to make difference between primary and secondary sources and give some questions to ourselves, there are:

ü  How does the author know these details?

ü   Was the author present at the event or soon on the scene?

ü  Where does this information come from—personal experience,  eyewitness accounts, or reports written by others?

ü  Are the author's conclusions based on a single piece of evidence, or have many sources been taken into account?