Primary and Secondary Literature

1. Primary and Secondary Literature Finding good sources for research

2. Types of Scientific Literature • Popular Science • News Articles • Interest Articles • Books • Meeting Abstracts, Papers, and Proceedings • Research Articles • Review Articles • Encyclopedia or other reference material • Books • Reviews • Textbooks

3. Primary Literature • Report of original research • Written by the person(s) who conducted the research • Most reliable if published in a reliable peer-reviewed joural • Example: original journal articles • May be a full report or Brief/Note/ Letter

4. Secondary Literature • Information others have written on the topic • Resource that informs us of scientific research • Science writing in newspaper, magazines, TV news, internet, etc • Position papers, commentary, or review articles in peer reviewed journals

5. Writing Your Background Research • Should be a summary of your topic of study • Covers journal articles, books and other sources that describe the information that is currently known on the topic • Can establish the validity of your research

6. What am I trying to find?? • Sources that are related to your research topic • They may be identical or may just contain information that is relevant for your topic. • For lab reports • Looking for background information • What have other scientists done on this topic?

7. Primary or Secondary?

8. Primary or Secondary?

9. Primary or Secondary?

10. Primary or Secondary?

12. Do I need more primary or secondary sources? • Both are useful • Secondary sources can give you an overview of the topic • Primary sources are most reliable and give more specific information

13. Searches • Best to use key words • Search synonyms • Sometimes phrases work well • Primary literature, in general shouldn’t be more than 10 years old unless it is a standard paper on which later research is based (source of later research ideas)

14. Searches • Where do I look? • PubMed • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed • Google Scholar • http://scholar.google.com/ • Jstore • http://www.jstor.org/ • TEL and Gale • Both available through our school library

15. Understanding the parts of a Scientific Paper • Abstract – Brief summary • Introduction – Provides background information • Materials/Methods – Lists protocols, techniques, and reagents used • Results – Clearly summarizes the data generated from the experiments • Discussion-Provides explanations for the results • References-List Of Citations

16. What? I don’t get this article • How to read an article to determine relevance • 1. Search for key words in the title or well known scientists in the field • 2. Read the Abstract! • 3. Read the Introduction and Discussion (Conclusion) • 4. Then if you think it is relevant, read other parts of the article as needed

17. What do I do today? • 1. Practice search: by Wednesday turn in two primary and two secondary sources on a topic of interest • Label each source as primary or secondary • How it relates to your topic of interest • Citation of source • Link to source • 2. Find information for background research for your next lab report • AP Biology: Behavior of Isopods • APES: Acid Rain and pH in the environment • You MUST have a minimum of three sources in your background information one of which must be primary. • Textbook sources may be used in addition to your three sources, but not as one of the three