From Inquiry to Academic Writing A Practical Guide, 3rd edition

134 CHAPTER 6 | FRom FIndIng To EvAluATIng SouRCES

which you will need to answer your question. Your instructor may specify

which he or she prefers, but chances are you will have to make the deci­

sion yourself. A primary source is a firsthand, or eyewitness, account, the

kind of account you find in letters or newspapers or research reports in

which the researcher explains his or her impressions of a particular phe­

nomenon. For example, “Hidden Lessons,” the Sadkers’ study of gender

bias in schools, is a primary source. The authors report their own expe­

riences of the phenomenon in the classroom. A secondary source is an

analysis of information reported in a primary source. For example, even

though it may cite the Sadkers’ primary research, an essay that analyzes

the Sad kers’ findings along with other studies of gender dynamics in the

classroom would be considered a secondary source.

If you were exploring issues of language diversity and the English­

only movement, you would draw on both primary and secondary sources.

You would be interested in researchers’ firsthand (primary) accounts of

language learning and use by diverse learners for examples of the chal­

lenges nonnative speakers face in learning a standard language. And

you would also want to know from secondary sources what others think

about whether national unity and individuality can and should coexist

in communities and homes as well as in schools. You will find that you

are often expected to use both primary and secondary sources in your

research.

■ distinguish Between Popular and Scholarly Sources

To determine the type of information to use, you also need to decide

whether you should look for popular or scholarly books and articles.

Popular sources of information — newspapers like USA Today and The

Chronicle of Higher Education, and large­ circulation magazines like Time

Magazine and Field & Stream — are written for a general audience. This

is not to say that popular sources cannot be specialized: The Chronicle of

Higher Education is read mostly by academics; Field & Stream, by people

who love the outdoors. But they are written so that any educated reader

can understand them. Scholarly sources, by contrast, are written for

experts in a particular field. The New England Journal of Medicine may be

read by people who are not physicians, but they are not the journal’s pri­

mary audience. In a manner of speaking, these readers are eavesdropping

on the journal’s conversation of ideas; they are not expected to contribute

to it (and in fact would be hard pressed to do so). The articles in schol­

arly journals undergo peer review. That is, they do not get published until

they have been carefully evaluated by the author’s peers, other experts in

the academic conversation being conducted in the journal. Reviewers may

comment at length about an article’s level of research and writing, and

an author may have to revise an article several times before it sees print.

And if the reviewers cannot reach a consensus that the research makes an

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