Critical Assessment of Primary and Secondary Sources

As a quick refresher:

Secondary sources offer an analysis, interpretation or a restatement of primary sources. They usually involve generalizations, synthesis, interpretation, commentary and/or evaluations of primary sources as a means of the author proving their argument.

Part of the research process is identifying which secondary sources will support your argument, and critically assessing them to ensure that your research isn’t relying on arguments that are outdated and/or unsubstantiated. To this end, it is important to:

• Be aware of over-relying on a single critical source. Your secondary source materials should discuss various critical viewpoints on your topic;
• Ensure that the background reading you do informs your own interpretation and critical analysis of the primary texts, but does not replace your own views;  
• Read secondary texts critically. You, as the researcher, have the ability (and responsibility) to use or reject secondary material. Secondary sources are not infallible, and as such you should not automatically assume that all secondary sources meet scholarly research rigor.

Your critical reading of secondary texts should attempt to answer the following questions:

• Who is the author? Are they a scholar in the field?
• Was the book/ journal published by a scholarly publisher?
• What is the purpose of the text or motive for writing it?
• Does the writer have an obvious bias?
• Does the book/ article have an extensive bibliography?
• What are the primary sources referred to by the author?
• What secondary sources are used by the author?
• Does the text have citations enabling you to check the author's sources?

This text is based on Use of secondary critical sources and Why use secondary sources