Book:Could be secondary or primary source. In a book the information you find would be very helpful. An actual story behind the information, or research for a similar topic. A book is a great resource in a research because there is a reliable author. You could use to a book to show similar reserach another author did for a project.
Blog Post:Tertiary source. I don't feel as if a blog post is as effecient as a book. A blog post is more of one's opinion on a topic, and how they feel about it. It could be helpful if your clueless to the steps to find scholarly information. A blog post could be used in research for a example, but you wouldn't be as sure if the information was realiable.
Scholarly Journal Article: Primary source. A scholarly journal is very useful because it has professor's own research and reliable sources. It's named scholarly for a reason, it's great information to use on research project. The author of the journal worked very hard to find all the information he/she did.
Wikipedia: The source is not reliable, because one can go to the website and alter the information if they please. One could possibly think they have the right information on the topic but could be completley wrong. Wikipedia is not a good source to use on research because your paper would not be correct.
Podcast: Is information from one's audio voice or video telling about a source. The information can be useful for research. It's reliable.
Definitely agree, except Wikipedia could be a good starting point to get basis information on your topic!
ReplyDeleteGreat point, Kolbey! Wikipedia is a great place to start to get ideas about how to narrow your topic or develop keywords... Just don't end there, use that info to find more reliable sources!
DeleteAw, man, you've got primary/secondary/tertiary all mixed up. Primary sources are the original recording of an event or the original text. Secondary sources add some analysis to primary data. Tertiary sources just summarize what others have done.
ReplyDeleteSo books could be any of the three. Blog posts could also be any of the three. If you use it as an example of the types of opinions people are posting online, it would be functioning as a primary source. If the author is reporting on some preliminary research results (not ready for publication yet, but more research than opinion), then it would be a secondary source. Scholarly journal articles are almost always secondary sources.
The aspect I was hoping you'd focus on, though, is the type of information you'd find in each type of source. So a book is good for finding background information and a good overview of a topic. A journal article often doesn't give a broad overview, it just gives detailed information on a specific research project. A blog post might give you opinion, or a summary, or preliminary (not ready to publish) research findings... How does knowing this help with YOUR research?