TSL 3251 - Applied Linguistics for ESL (Del Prado)

Derived from the University of Maryland TESOL & Second Language Education Research Guide:

Primary sources provide a first-hand account of an event or time period and are considered to be authoritative. They represent original thinking, reports on discoveries or events, or they can share new information. Often these sources are created at the time the events occurred but they can also include sources that are created later. They are usually the first formal appearance of original research.

Secondary sources involve analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of primary sources. They often attempt to describe or explain primary sources.

Scholarly journals, although generally considered to be secondary sources, often contain articles on very specific subjects and may be the primary source of information on new developments.

Primary and secondary categories are often not fixed and depend on the study or research you are undertaking. For example, newspaper editorial/opinion pieces can be both primary and secondary. If exploring how an event affected people at a certain time, this type of source would be considered a primary source. If exploring the event, then the opinion piece would be responding to the event and therefore is considered to be a secondary source.

Types of primary sources:

Qualitative Data:

• What people say: Including speeches, Interviews and Conversations, and they may be captured in Videos, Audio Recordings, or transcribed into text.
• What people write: Autobiographies, Memoirs, Personal Journals and Diaries, Letters, Emails, Blogs, Twitter Feeds and other forms of Social Media.
• Images and Videos.
• Maps.
• Government Documents--U.S. and rest of the world.
• Laws, Court Cases and Decisions, Treaties.
• Newspapers.

Quantitative Data:

• Statistics and Data.
• Polls and Public Opinions.