Misplaced Pages

#192807

45-455: A book review may be a primary source , an opinion piece, a summary review, or a scholarly view. Books can be reviewed for printed periodicals, magazines, and newspapers, as school work, or for book websites on the Internet. A book review's length may vary from a single paragraph to a substantial essay . Such a review may evaluate the book based on personal taste. Reviewers may use the occasion of

90-476: A memoir would be considered a primary source in research concerning its author or about their friends characterized within it, but the same memoir would be a secondary source if it were used to examine the culture in which its author lived. "Primary" and "secondary" should be understood as relative terms, with sources categorized according to specific historical contexts and what is being studied. In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources

135-410: A biography of a historian, that historian's publications would be primary sources. Documentary films can be considered a secondary source or primary source, depending on how much the filmmaker modifies the original sources. The Lafayette College Library provides a synopsis of primary sources in several areas of study: The definition of a primary source varies depending upon the academic discipline and

180-635: A book review for an extended essay that can be closely or loosely related to the subject of the book, or to promulgate their ideas on the topic of a fiction or non-fiction work. Some journals are devoted to book reviews, and reviews are indexed in databases such as the Book Review Index and Kirkus Reviews ; but many more book reviews can be found in newspaper and scholarly databases such as Arts and Humanities Citation Index , Social Sciences Citation Index , and discipline-specific databases. Photios I of Constantinople has been called "the inventor of

225-419: A broader sense primary sources also include artifacts like photographs, newsreels, coins, paintings or buildings created at the time. Historians may also take archaeological artifacts and oral reports and interviews into consideration. Written sources may be divided into three types. In historiography, when the study of history is subject to historical scrutiny, a secondary source becomes a primary source. For

270-453: A certain topic. Whether a source is regarded as primary or secondary in a given context may change, depending upon the present state of knowledge within the field. For example, if a document refers to the contents of a previous but undiscovered letter, that document may be considered "primary", since it is the closest known thing to an original source; but if the letter is later found, it may then be considered "secondary" In some instances,

315-411: A court case may be truthful but may still be distorted to support or oppose the position of one of the parties. Many sources can be considered either primary or secondary, depending on the context in which they are examined. Moreover, the distinction between primary and secondary sources is subjective and contextual, so that precise definitions are difficult to make. A book review, when it contains

360-478: A disadvantage when trying to publish in these journals, regardless of the quality of the scientific study itself. Yet many international universities require publication in these high-impact journals by both their students and faculty. One way that some international authors are beginning to overcome this problem is by contracting with freelance copy editors who are native speakers of English and specialize in ESL (English as

405-494: A formal article. Articles are usually prepared at the end of a project, or at the end of components of a particularly large one. In preparing such an article vigorous rules for scientific writing have to be followed. Often, career advancement depends upon publishing in high-impact journals, which, especially in hard and applied sciences, are usually published in English. Consequently, scientists with poor English writing skills are at

450-444: A narrative that may not be accurate. For any source, primary or secondary, it is important for the researcher to evaluate the amount and direction of bias. As an example, a government report may be an accurate and unbiased description of events, but it may be censored or altered for propaganda or cover-up purposes. The facts can be distorted to present the opposing sides in a negative light. Barristers are taught that evidence in

495-535: A period. Primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source ) is an artifact , document , diary , manuscript , autobiography , recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions can be used in library science and other areas of scholarship, although different fields have somewhat different definitions. In journalism ,

SECTION 10

#1732848005193

540-408: A primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document written by such a person. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources , which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources. Generally, accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight are secondary. A secondary source may also be a primary source depending on how it is used. For example,

585-471: A primary source is not necessarily more of an authority or better than a secondary source. There can be bias and tacit unconscious views that twist historical information. Original material may be... prejudiced, or at least not exactly what it claims to be. The errors may be corrected in secondary sources, which are often subjected to peer review , can be well documented, and are often written by historians working in institutions where methodological accuracy

630-642: A primary source was perpetrated by Sir Edward Dering , who placed false monumental brasses in a parish church . In 1986, Hugh Trevor-Roper authenticated the Hitler Diaries , which were later proved to be forgeries. Recently , forged documents have been placed within the UK National Archives in the hope of establishing a false provenance . However, historians dealing with recent centuries rarely encounter forgeries of any importance. Scientific literature Scientific literature encompasses

675-797: A second language) editing to polish their manuscripts' English to a level that high-impact journals will accept. Although the content of an article is more important than the format, it is customary for scientific articles to follow a standard structure, which varies only slightly in different subjects. Although the IMRAD structure emphasizes the organization of content, and in scientific journal articles, each section (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) has unique conventions for scientific writing style. The following are key guidelines for formatting, although each journal etc will to some extent have its own house style: Increasing reliance on digital abstracting services and academic search engines means that

720-544: A summary of a book or letter has survived. Potential difficulties with primary sources have the result that history is usually taught in schools using secondary sources. Historians studying the modern period with the intention of publishing an academic article prefer to go back to available primary sources and to seek new (in other words, forgotten or lost) ones. Primary sources, whether accurate or not, offer new input into historical questions and most modern history revolves around heavy use of archives and special collections for

765-451: A vast body of academic papers that spans various disciplines within the natural and social sciences . It primarily consists of academic papers that present original empirical research and theoretical contributions. These papers serve as essential sources of knowledge and are commonly referred to simply as " the literature " within specific research fields. The process of academic publishing involves disseminating research findings to

810-791: A wider audience. Researchers submit their work to reputable journals or conferences, where it undergoes rigorous evaluation by experts in the field. This evaluation, known as peer review , ensures the quality, validity, and reliability of the research before it becomes part of the scientific literature. Peer-reviewed publications contribute significantly to advancing our understanding of the world and shaping future research endeavors. Original scientific research first published in scientific journals constitutes primary literature . Patents and technical reports , which cover minor research results and engineering and design efforts, including computer software , are also classified as primary literature. Secondary sources comprise review articles that summarize

855-437: Is based on primary sources, as evaluated by the community of scholars, who report their findings in books, articles, and papers. Arthur Marwick says "Primary sources are absolutely fundamental to history." Ideally, a historian will use all available primary sources that were created by the people involved at the time being studied. In practice, some sources have been destroyed, while others are not available for research. Perhaps

900-449: Is called diplomatics . For centuries, popes used the forged Donation of Constantine to bolster the Papacy's secular power. Among the earliest forgeries are false Anglo-Saxon charters , a number of 11th- and 12th-century forgeries produced by monasteries and abbeys to support a claim to land where the original document had been lost or never existed. One particularly unusual forgery of

945-530: Is customarily not indexed by major databases and can include manuals, theses and dissertations, or newsletters and bulletins. The significance of different types of the scientific publications can vary between disciplines and change over time. According to James G. Speight and Russell Foote , peer-reviewed journals are the most prominent and prestigious form of publication. University presses are more prestigious than commercial press publication. The status of working papers and conference proceedings depends on

SECTION 20

#1732848005193

990-645: Is important to the future of the author's career and reputation. Historians consider the accuracy and objectivity of the primary sources that they are using and historians subject both primary and secondary sources to a high level of scrutiny. A primary source such as a journal entry (or the online version, a blog), at best, may only reflect one individual's opinion on events, which may or may not be truthful, accurate, or complete. Participants and eyewitnesses may misunderstand events or distort their reports, deliberately or not, to enhance their own image or importance. Such effects can increase over time, as people create

1035-459: Is only with great caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources." In addition, primary sources avoid the problem inherent in secondary sources in which each new author may distort and put a new spin on the findings of prior cited authors. A history, whose author draws conclusions from other than primary sources or secondary sources actually based on primary sources, is by definition fiction and not history at all. However,

1080-437: Is passed from one author to another. In scientific literature , a primary source, or the "primary literature", is the original publication of a scientist's new data, results, and theories. In political history , primary sources are documents such as official reports, speeches, pamphlets, posters, or letters by participants, official election returns, and eyewitness accounts. In the history of ideas or intellectual history ,

1125-436: Is to determine their independence and reliability. In contexts such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources and that "if none are available, it is only with great caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources." Sreedharan believes that primary sources have the most direct connection to the past and that they "speak for themselves" in ways that cannot be captured through

1170-519: Is to preserve the evidence for scientific priority, and in particular for priority for obtaining patents. They have also been used in scientific disputes. Since the availability of computers, the notebooks in some data-intensive fields have been kept as database records, and appropriate software is commercially available. The work on a project is typically published as one or more technical reports, or articles. In some fields both are used, with preliminary reports, working papers, or preprints followed by

1215-624: The World Digital Library and Flickr Commons have items from all over the world. Trove has primary sources from Australia. Most primary source materials are not digitized and may only be represented online with a record or finding aid . Both digitized and not digitized materials can be found through catalogs such as WorldCat , the Library of Congress catalog , the National Archives catalog , and so on. History as an academic discipline

1260-682: The de facto acceptance in the academic discourse is predicted by the inclusion in such selective sources. Commercial providers of proprietary data include Chemical Abstracts Service , Web of Science and Scopus , while open data (and often open source , non-profit and library -led) services include DOAB , DOAJ and (for open access works) Unpaywall (based on CrossRef and Microsoft Academic records enriched with OAI-PMH data from open archives ). The transfer of copyright from author to publisher, used by some journals, can be controversial because many authors want to propagate their ideas more widely and re-use their material elsewhere without

1305-465: The available documents relate to England and Wales. Some digital copies of primary sources are available from the National Archives of Scotland . Many County Record Offices collections are included in Access to Archives, while others have their own online catalogs. Many County Record Offices will supply digital copies of documents. In other regions, Europeana has digitized materials from across Europe while

1350-430: The book review" for his work, Bibliotheca . Academic book reviews are both a form of academic service and a contribution to the academic literature. They are frequently published as a section or part of academic journals. They help the profession understand what has been happening in their profession, and work on the emerging intellectual challenges of their field. However, not all academics are incentivized to take on

1395-426: The context in which it is used. Although many primary sources remain in private hands, others are located in archives , libraries , museums , historical societies , and special collections . These can be public or private. Some are affiliated with universities and colleges, while others are government entities. Materials relating to one area might be located in many different institutions. These can be distant from

Book review - Misplaced Pages Continue

1440-559: The digitized primary source collections of many libraries, archives, and museums. The Internet Archive also has primary source materials in many formats. In the UK, the National Archives provides a consolidated search of its own catalog and a wide variety of other archives listed on the Access to Archives index. Digital copies of various classes of documents at the National Archives (including wills) are available from DocumentsOnline. Most of

1485-423: The discipline; they are typically more important in the applied sciences . The value of publication as a preprint or scientific report on the web has in the past been low, but in some subjects, such as mathematics or high energy physics , it is now an accepted alternative. Scientific papers have been categorised into ten types. Eight of these carry specific objectives, while the other two can vary depending on

1530-469: The filter of secondary sources. In scholarly writing, the objective of classifying sources is to determine the independence and reliability of sources. Though the terms primary source and secondary source originated in historiography as a way to trace the history of historical ideas, they have been applied to many other fields. For example, these ideas may be used to trace the history of scientific theories, literary elements, and other information that

1575-501: The main primary sources are books, essays, and letters written by intellectuals; these intellectuals may include historians, whose books and essays are therefore considered primary sources for the intellectual historian, though they are secondary sources in their own topical fields. In religious history , the primary sources are religious texts and descriptions of religious ceremonies and rituals . A study of cultural history could include fictional sources such as novels or plays. In

1620-449: The need for permission. Usually an author or authors circumvent that problem by rewriting an article and using other pictures. Some publishers may also want publicity for their journal so will approve facsimile reproduction unconditionally; other publishers are more resistant. In scientific publishing, a number of key issues include and are not restricted to: The first recorded editorial pre-publication peer-review occurred in 1665 by

1665-434: The only eyewitness reports of an event may be memoirs , autobiographies, or oral interviews that were taken years later. Sometimes the only evidence relating to an event or person in the distant past was written or copied decades or centuries later. Manuscripts that are sources for classical texts can be copies of documents or fragments of copies of documents. This is a common problem in classical studies , where sometimes only

1710-419: The opinion of the reviewer about the book rather than a summary of the book, becomes a primary source. If a historical text discusses old documents to derive a new historical conclusion, it is considered to be a primary source for the new conclusion. Examples in which a source can be both primary and secondary include an obituary or a survey of several volumes of a journal counting the frequency of articles on

1755-808: The original source of the document. For example, the Huntington Library in California houses many documents from the United Kingdom. In the US, digital copies of primary sources can be retrieved from a number of places. The Library of Congress maintains several digital collections where they can be retrieved. Some examples are American Memory and Chronicling America . The National Archives and Records Administration also has digital collections in Digital Vaults . The Digital Public Library of America searches across

1800-498: The purpose of finding useful primary sources. A work on history is not likely to be taken seriously as a scholarship if it only cites secondary sources, as it does not indicate that original research has been done. However, primary sources – particularly those from before the 20th century – may have hidden challenges. "Primary sources, in fact, are usually fragmentary, ambiguous, and very difficult to analyze and interpret." Obsolete meanings of familiar words and social context are among

1845-559: The reason for identifying a text as the "primary source" may devolve from the fact that no copy of the original source material exists, or that it is the oldest extant source for the information cited. Historians must occasionally contend with forged documents that purport to be primary sources. These forgeries have usually been constructed with a fraudulent purpose, such as promulgating legal rights, supporting false pedigrees, or promoting particular interpretations of historic events. The investigation of documents to determine their authenticity

Book review - Misplaced Pages Continue

1890-516: The results of published studies to underscore progress and new research directions, as well as books that tackle extensive projects or comprehensive arguments, including article compilations. Tertiary sources encompass encyclopedias and similar works designed for widespread public consumption. Scientific literature can include the following kinds of publications: Literature may also be published in areas considered to be " grey ", as they are published outside of traditional channels. This material

1935-432: The style and the intended goal. Papers that carry specific objectives are: The following two categories are variable, including for example historical articles and speeches: The actual day-to-day records of scientific information are kept in research notebooks or logbooks. These are usually kept indefinitely as the basic evidence of the work, and are often kept in duplicate, signed, notarized, and archived. The purpose

1980-416: The traps that await the newcomer to historical studies. For this reason, the interpretation of primary texts is typically taught as part of an advanced college or postgraduate history course, although advanced self-study or informal training is also possible. In many fields and contexts, such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources if possible, and "if none are available, it

2025-425: The work required in a book review, because they are often not rewarded for that work. Book reviews can be used to predict which monographs are likely to have subsequent citations. Newspaper reviews became prominent in the 18h century, as a form of reader responses. In academic criticism, popular book reviews in newspapers and magazine reviews are often used to evaluate the relative audience and impact of books during

#192807