Evaluating Sources
What types of sources are there, and how do you know what you have?
The Big Three
Primary Sources: These are materials that would be created by the scientist who first discovered kevlar, the work that she published on kevlar shortly thereafter would be original, never before written and would therefore be a primary source. Or, lets say your writing a research paper on Shakespeare, the primary sources you would use would be Shakespeare's letters, plays, or other work. The use of primary sources convey to your readers how closely you examined your topic without re-inventing kevlar, or going back in time to meet Shakespeare.
Secondary Sources: These materials most often are books, reports or assessments based on primary sources. If you were to cite only Shakespeare's actual writing in your work and then someone else used your report for theirs, then your document would be their secondary source.
Tertiary Sources: These materials are most often based on the use of secondary sources but can sometimes utilize primary sources as well. Lets say that there are 35 reports on the usefulness of kevlar, and you were to summarize all that information and make a film documentary, then your film would be considered a tertiary source. Because the nature of this type of source is often broad, usually much of the finer details of the larger work are forgotten or left out, so it is a good idea to refer back to your primary and secondary sources for use in your work.
Is the information accurate and reliable, or are you just wasting time?
What about sources found on the Internet, how do you know who, what, where and why?