Role of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources in Academic Writing

This paper assesses the role of primary, secondary and tertiary sources in diverse disciplines of academic writing. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each source and concludes that all three sources should be used to enhance the quality of academic writing.

Running head: ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
English Assignments
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
Essay Question: Should all academic writing be based on primary sources?
Introduction
Academic writing is regarded as a comprehensible, focused and structured form of
writing or documentation aided by evidences. It comprises of formal tone and style and further
aims to provide support to the understanding of the readers (Coolican, 2017).
The three forms of information sources namely; primary, secondary and tertiary provide a
diverse purpose throughout the procedure of any academic research.
This form of academic writing is generally aimed for a distinctive as well as informed
audience.
The paper will assess the role of primary, secondary and tertiary sources in diverse
disciplines of academic writing.
Paragraph 1
The topic of the first paragraph includes the role of primary sources in academic writing.
Primary sources can be defined as the immediate, first-hand account of the topic associated with
academic writing.
A primary source offers raw and direct evidence that incorporates historical, legal
documents, accounts of the observants, experimental consequences. In the domain of natural and
social sciences, primary references are often considered as empirical studies (Coolican, 2017).

2ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
The consequences of empirical observations are typically established in academic and scholarly
articles.
An article, “ Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging
Economies’ by Jacob Poushter reveals a methodology of survey research, thus can be used as an
example of primary source (Poushter, 2016).
Another advantage of primary resources is that the writer can design his own experiment
or questionaries in order to develop an effective research paper. Considering the fact that primary
resources has several advantages, there are some disadvantages too. First of all, conducting
interviews and survey and preparing research paper after analysing them is highly time
consuming (Turner et al. 2011, 96-128). Besides that, evidence that includes eyewitness or
interviews bears a risk of being unauthentic (McDaniel and Gates 2013, 12-15).
Finally, the academic writing by an untrained writer who lacks knowledge about
methodology bears the risk of getting rejected or invalid. Therefore, from the above discussion, it
can be concluded that usage of primary sources has both advantages as well as disadvantages.
Paragraph 2
The topic of this paragraph includes the merits and demerits of Secondary sources in
academic writing. Secondary sources of information can be defined as information that is not
received as first-hand information. Some of the major sources of secondary sources include
scholarly books and articles, information collected from government departments, censuses and
data that were originally collected by other researchers. Like the primary sources, secondary
sources to have several advantages (Peck and Coyle 2012, 120-135). The first and foremost
advantage of secondary sources includes saving of time. Before the emergence of the internet,

3ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
secondary data collection was time-consuming and witters used to spend lots of time in the
libraries. However, easy access to an innumerable number of articles and journals related to the
research topic through the internet has made things easier. However, it must be noted that no
specific information inherent in a source can make it a primary or secondary reference. Rather it
is regarded to a category that relies on the way a researcher treats the source and further is
reliable on the research question.
The “Black Reconstruction in America’ written by W.E.B Du Bois can be sited as an
example of a secondary source in order to study on the Americans of the 19th century (Du Bois,
2017). The author in the article gave detailed illustrations of administrative reports, biographies,
testimonies and historical narratives to provide an argument and claim of the past events within
his writing.
Moreover, precise information can also be availed via a search engine. Another
advantage of using secondary resources includes accessibility to lots of authentic information
that has been collected by other researchers. Usage of secondary sources is less expensive
compared to that of primary sources. This is because, in case of primary sources, data is
collected by conducting surveys and interview with samples (Chalmers 2013, 23-25). Another
risk associated with the usage of secondary sources is that the information may be coloured by
the researcher's own point of view which may be a biased or a faulty approach. In several fields,
secondary sources that are available may be outdated and hence are not usable for current
academic writing (Brick, Herke and Wong 2016, 56-61)

4ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
Paragraph 3
The topic of this paragraph includes the advantages and disadvantages of the usage of
tertiary source in Academic writing. Major examples of tertiary sources include a summary
booklet of a novel or an academic essay comparing scholarly forecasts. Tertiary sources are
useful since they provide an easy and quick introduction to the topic.
A news article on indigenous communities published on the Guardian, “Who Defending
Canada’s national interest? First nations facing down a pipeline” can be sited as an example of
tertiary resource that has offered a rapid as well as easy introduction to the subject present in the
news article (Lukacs, 2018). Such sources not only offer third hand data by reporting thoughts
and ideas from secondary data do not degrade the value of tertiary references in a scholarly
writing. Furthermore, in order to predict the growth and development of a state over the next
decade, researchers can use reports and evidences by a lobbying group or an outlook-page write-
up of an y renowned news journals.
However, it must be highlighted that despite of providing effective information, tertiary
sources often tend to provide misrepresentation of a topic further leading to neglect few
significant insights into the subject.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, t can be concluded that all the three discussed sources of
academic writing, namely, primary, secondary and tertiary sources has advantages as well as
disadvantages. However, considering the fact that usage of only primary sources for academic
writing can lead to consumption of a huge amount of time and money, both secondary, as well as
tertiary sources, must be used. In this era of modernization, information associated with the

5ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
research topic is readily available on the internet. Usage of tertiary sources enhances the
authenticity of the academic writing. Therefore, writers must use both secondary and tertiary
sources in order to enhance the quality of their academic writing within the stipulated time
period.

6ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
Reference List
Brick, J., Herke, M. and Wong, D., 2016. Academic Culture: A Student’s Guide to Studying at
University. 3rd Edition. Macmillan: South Yarra, pp. 56-61
Chalmers, A.F., 2013. What is this thing called science?. Hackett Publishing, pp.23-25
Coolican, H. (2017). Research methods and statistics in psychology. Psychology Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (Ed.). (2017). Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a history of the part
which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880.
Routledge.
Guyot, P., Ades, A. E., Ouwens, M. J., and Welton, N. J., 2012. Enhanced secondary analysis of
survival data: reconstructing the data from published Kaplan-Meier survival curves. BMC
medical research methodology, 12(1), pp. 9.
Lukacs, M. (2018). Who’s defending Canada’s national interest? First Nations facing down a
pipeline | Martin Lukacs. the Guardian. Retrieved 17 April 2018, from
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2018/apr/16/whos-defending-
canadas-national-interest-first-nations-facing-down-a-pipeline
McDaniel, C., and Gates, R. 2013. Marketing research. Singapore, pp. 24-27
Peck, J and Coyle, M 2012, ‘Essay writing: paragraph control’, Write It Right: The Secrets of
Effective Writing, 2nd edn, Palgrave, Houndmills, pp. 120- 135.
Poushter, J. (2016). Smartphone ownership and internet usage continues to climb in emerging
economies. Pew Research Center, 22.

7ENGLISH ASSIGNMENTS
Turner, K., Ireland, L., Krenus, B., and Pointon, L., 2011. ‘Basic academic writing skills’,
Essential academic skills, Oxford, South Melbourne, pp. 96-128.