Q. How do I know if an article is a primary or secondary research article?

First, let me start by saying that in research (and librarianship), we sometimes use similar words to mean slightly different things — and that’s often where the confusion begins.

You’re asking how to tell whether an article is primary or secondary. Great question! The tricky part is that there are two related — but different — conversations happening:

• Primary vs. secondary research articles
• Primary vs. secondary sources

Let’s break them down one at a time.

Primary vs. Secondary Research Articles

If we’re talking about research articles, the difference is fairly straightforward:

Primary research articles report on one specific research study.
Secondary research articles review and analyze multiple research studies.

How can you spot the difference?

1. Goal of the article

• A primary research article is presenting new research. It explains what the researchers did, how they did it, and what they found.
• A secondary research article (often called a review article) summarizes and analyzes the findings of previously published studies.

2. Methodology section

• A primary article will describe its experiment or study in detail. You’ll usually see:
  • A sample size (often written as “n = …”)
  • Discussion of participants (people, animals, data sets, etc.)
  • Specific methods like surveys, experiments, focus groups, interviews, or statistical analyses
• A secondary article won’t have its own participants. Instead, its methods section will explain how the authors searched databases, selected articles, and analyzed the existing research.

3. Language clues

• Primary research articles often use words like experiment, participants, sample size, survey, or analysis.
• Secondary research articles often include terms like review, systematic review, or meta-analysis in the title.

4. Purpose

• Primary research articles test hypotheses and contribute new findings to a field. They’re also helpful for seeing how research is actually conducted.
• Secondary research articles provide a big-picture overview of what research has already concluded about a topic. They’re great for understanding the current state of knowledge in a field.

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Now — if you’re asking about primary and secondary sources, that’s a slightly different concept.

This distinction is most commonly used in the humanities (history, philosophy, the arts, archaeology, etc.).

• A primary source is something created by someone who directly experienced or participated in the event being studied.
  Think: letters, diaries, photographs, maps, speeches, artifacts, original documents.
• A secondary source analyzes, interprets, or synthesizes those primary sources.
  For example, a book that examines letters and firsthand accounts of Civil War army nurses would be a secondary source.

Please note: if you are seeking information about primary and secondary sources for historical research, please find information here: https://libguides.unco.edu/history-primary-resources