There are different types of periodicals, including journals, magazines and trade publications. For many assignments your instructor will specify the types of sources you should consult in your research. Use the definitions and descriptions listed below to identify the proper sources. Watch a video about publication types.

• Primary Sources Contains raw, original, uninterpreted, and unevaluated information. Examples: diaries, interviews, letters, original documents, patents, photographs, proceeding of meetings or conferences, market surveys, opinion polls, and works of literature.

• Secondary Sources Digest, analyze, evaluate, and interpret the information contained within primary sources. They tend to be argumentative. Examples: biographies, commentaries, dissertations, indexes, abstracts, bibliographies, journal articles, and monographs. This is the type of information that you find in library databases

• Tertiary Sources Compile, analyze, and digest secondary sources. They tend to be factual. Examples: almanacs, encyclopedias, and fact books.

A primary source is firsthand testimony or direct evidence. In business research, this could be an interview in a news article, financial statements from an annual report, images of company logos, census data collected by the government, a new law that affects businesses, and data collected by an academic researcher for a new research project.

Examples of primary sources available at the Library:

Census: Contains facts and figures about people, housing, business, and industry in the U.S.

Mergent Intellect: Access to private U.S. and public US and international financial information, including EDGAR/SEC fillings. It also includes industry analysis.

ProQuest Business Collection: Under "Document Type," try the following sources: (1) advertisement; (2) annual report, (3) interview, (5) speech, (6) transcript. Also, try clicking the "Peer Reviewed" box and choosing Source Type "Scholarly Journals." Scholarly articles may be primary and secondary sources. An academic article would be considered a secondary source if no original data or information (such as interviews) were collected and shared.

RMA eStatement Studies -  Composite financial data and financial ratio benchmark for small, mediumU.S.d large U.S. companies. Search by industry keyword or NAICS. Advanced search by industry, year, region, and data types such as assets and sales.

A secondary source uses primary sources as a way to interpret and evaluate past events. In business research, this could be a news round-up in a trade journal, a market research report, an industry profile, an annotated bibliography, a peer-reviewed article that critiques existing research, and books

Below are some examples of secondary sources available at the Library:

Business Source Premier (EBSCO) - Business news and analysis. Peer-reviewed research. Case studies and SWOT analyses. Country reports. Includes Harvard Business Review.\

ProQuest Business Collection - Contains all content from ABI/INFORM Complete, Accounting and Tax, Asian Business and Reference, Banking Information Source, Entrepreneurship, and J.P. Morgan Research. Featuring thousands of full-text journals, dissertations, conference proceedings, and working papers, as well as trade publications, analyst reports, industry reports, and key periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Economist.