Doing Primary Research

Doing Primary Research — page 3 — YOU CONDUCT RESEARCH EVERY DAY AND YOU PROBABLY DON’T EVEN REALIZE IT When you want to know the score of last night’s football game you check on line If you’re wondering how to spell or deﬁne supercilious you get out the dictionary And when you’ve forgotten the math assignment you e-mail your friends to ask them Although these research situations are rather informal the skills you use for them are similar to those you need to conduct research for writing After all research is basically just a search a search for sources that contain speciﬁc relevant and accurate information about your topic But where do you look for that information Well that depends on what you want to know For some subjects books will be your best sources For oth ers you might ﬁnd what you need on the Internet In many cases you’ll need to do primary research that is research that contains ﬁrsthand information Let’s say your assignment is to write about the 2010 Winter Olympic Games for example Today’s newspaper probably isn’t going to cover the event You will 4

Doing Primary Research — page 4 — most likely ﬁnd an entry in an encyclopedia but will that be enough How about turning right to the source including television footage of the Games and inter views with the athletes Primary sources are a great way to learn about an event from the perspec tive of those who experienced it And you can conduct your own primary re search too by carrying out experiments surveys interviews and observations Such ﬁrsthand information can back up old claims and even lead to new insights 5

Doing Primary Research — page 5 — PRIMARY SOURCE PRIMER 6

Doing Primary Research — page 6 — MOST OFTEN YOU WILL HEAR PRIMARY SOURCES referred to in conjunction with secondary sources But why are they called primary and secondary sources Is it because primary sources are more important than secondary sources Actually no Primary sources are called primary because of their direct ﬁrsthand nature Nothing stands between the original source and the event or information it relates In contrast secondary sources report on and often interpret primary sources They rely on the information-gathering and analytical skills of a secondary author someone who was not present for an event or was uninvolved in the original experimental or surveying process For example if you are writing a paper about the works of J K Rowling Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone would be a primary source An article offering literary criticism or analysis of the novel would be a secondary source Both primary and secondary sources can be valuable tools when doing research for a writing assignment In fact you’ll often want to turn to second ary sources ﬁrst Why Secondary sources can provide needed background information on a subject and unless you have that background information a primary source might not make much sense to you For example if you are researching Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address but do not know where or when or why he gave the speech it may be difficult to understand Sec ondary research can also help you prepare for conducting your own primary research such as an interview It will be hard to know what to ask an expert about the abolition of slavery for example if you don’t know something about the subject in the ﬁrst place 7

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