Public Health Resources: Finding the Research

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The idea of primary sources in the sciences is a little bit different than primary sources in the humanities or social sciences.  In the sciences, the focus is on the research.

Primary sources are ones written by the scientists who performed the experiments, during the time of the study - these articles include original research data. 

Secondary sources are ones that summarize or compare lots of research in a particular area.

So how can you tell if a science article is a primary source?  Primary research articles will include sections about:

• methodology -  explaining how the experiment was conducted
• results - detailing what happened and providing raw data sets (often as tables or graphs)
• conclusions - connecting the results with theories and other research
• references - to previous research or theories that influenced the research