Primary Sources provide direct or first-hand evidence about an event, object, person or work of art.
Secondary Sources lack the immediacy of a primary record.
Scholarly articles (also known as refereed or peer-reviewed articles) are written by scholarly experts in a field and are aimed at an academic audience. These articles are usually reviewed by other experts in the same field to help ensure their accuracy and integrity. Scholarly articles are much shorter in length than a book and generally have a more specific subject focus.
Scholarly articles provide:
Evidence from an expert scholar that has been reviewed by other scholars
Detailed information and research on very specific topics
Insight into current research, trends, and theories within an academic discipline
Books are a great resource to use when you are just starting out on your assignment and need to learn more about your general research topic.
Books provide:
Broad overviews of a general topic
Basic facts
Information on more specific areas within your topic, which can give you ideas on ways to narrow your research topic into something more manageable
Books usually do not provide:
Newspaper articles are particularly useful if you are interested in researching current events, public opinions, or media representations of an event or issue.
Newspapers provide:
Coverage of current or very recent events
Firsthand accounts
Information on public opinions about an event or issue
Insight into media representations of an issue
*Always keep in mind that newspaper articles are written by journalists, not scholarly researchers, and are directed towards a much more general audience than scholarly articles or monographs. Because of this, newspaper articles are generally not considered to be scholarly sources.