Biology

Primary

Primary articles are written by the individuals who did the research themselves. They are empirical (based on observation or experience instead of theory). Some clues that an article is primary:

• Abstract has statements about how data were collected, the number of subjects, and conclusions
• Abstract will often include at least one of these words:
  • analysis, study, investigation, examination, experiment, investigation, study, or survey
• Asks a research question or states a hypothesis or hypotheses
• Identifies a research population
• Describes a specific research method
• Tests or measures something
• Includes a section called "method" or "methodology"
• Includes a section called "results"

Secondary

Particularly in the sciences, secondary literature discusses work done by other researchers, and does not present findings of research done by the author(s). Examples of secondary articles include:

• Review articles (articles that arrive at conclusions based on research from other studies)
• Identifies areas where future research is needed
• Literature reviews (discussions of what various scholars in the field have published on a topic)
• Encyclopedia articles

The easiest way to find the scholarly article that was used as the basis for a news article is to enter the referenced author, journal, and publication year into Google Scholar search. Note: This is not the author or title of the news article.

Most news articles will give you the title of the referenced journal and the author of the article, but not the actual title of the article. Sometimes they will say “published last week” or something similar, which can help you identify the date the article was published. Sometimes there will be a link to the primary article, along with other links.

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Search Google Scholar for an article by its title: