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A tertiary source is an index or textual consolidation of already published primary and secondary sources that does not provide additional interpretations or analysis of the sources. Some tertiary sources can be used as an aid to find key (seminal) sources, key terms, general common knowledge and established mainstream science on a topic. The exact definition of tertiary varies by academic field. Academic research standards generally do not accept tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as citations, although survey articles are frequently cited rather than the original publication. Depending on the topic of research, a scholar may use a bibliography, dictionary, or encyclopedia as either a tertiary or a secondary source. This causes some difficulty in defining many sources as either one type or the other. In some academic disciplines, the differentiation between a secondary and tertiary source is relative. In the United Nations International Scientific Information System (UNISIST) model, a secondary source is a bibliography, whereas a tertiary source is a synthesis of primary sources. As tertiary sources, encyclopedias, dictionaries, some textbooks, and compendia attempt to summarize, collect, and consolidate the source materials into an overview without adding analysis and synthesis of new conclusions. Indexes, bibliographies, concordances, and databases may not provide much textual information, but as aggregates of primary and secondary sources, they are often considered tertiary sources. However, they may also provide access to the full text or content of primary and secondary sources. Although tertiary sources are both primary and secondary, they are more towards a secondary source because of commentary and bias. Almanacs, travel guides, field guides, and timelines are also examples of tertiary sources. Survey or overview articles are usually tertiary, though review articles in peer-reviewed academic journals are generally considered secondary (not be confused with film, book, etc. reviews, which are primary-source opinions).

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Tertiary source

Secondary source

In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed; a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation or a document created by such a person. A secondary source is one that gives information about a primary source. In this source, the original information is selected, modified and arranged in a suitable format.

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.

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