SECONDARY SOURCES
Secondary sources are very valuable to historians, especially for seeing what other writers, especially other scholars, have already written about a topic. But secondary sources can be good or bad. Some writers may not have expertise about an area in which they are writing. Some writers can have expertise but their ideas that are not yet “up to snuff.” This can reduce the credibility of a source. For this reason, you should try your best in your research to find secondary sources that are “peer reviewed.”
Peer Review
According to Andrea Eidinger, peer review is a process wherein “a publication has been reviewed by the author’s peers (2 to 4 scholars who work in the same or related fields) prior to publication and deemed to be acceptable.”[1] For instance, if you are a biologist and you want to publish your research in a leading Biology journal, other experts in your area of inquiry (your peers) should read (i.e. review) your research before it gets presented to the world.
Peer review, Eidinger goes on to say, is akin to “a jury for a publication, only rather deciding the guilt or innocence of a party, it’s deciding whether or not it is a good piece of scholarship.”[2] Articles that have undergone the peer review process are considered more scholarly and more credible than articles that have not been through this process. As Eidinger points out, they “help the scholarly community by ensuring that everything released to the public is properly researched, has reviewed existing literature, makes a sound conclusion based on an convincing argument and a good methodology, and is an original contribution to the field.”[3]
See the separate pages on Journal Articles and Books.
NOTES
[1] Andrea Eidinger, “A Guide To Peer-Reviewed Journals in Canadian History,” Unwritten Histories, September 20, 2016, retrieved from: http://www.unwrittenhistories.com/a-guide-to-peer-reviewed-journals-in-canadian-history/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
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