Picture your favorite musician in regards to the different types of sources.

Primary sources

• The musician’s recordings
• The musician’s writings
• An interview with the musician
• The video for the musician’s latest single
• A first-hand account of a performance by the musician posted on a fan’s web site
• The musician’s own web site
• A news story about an incident the musician was involved in

Secondary sources 

• A biography of the musician
• A review of the musician’s latest CD
• A magazine article about the musician
• A documentary about the musician, e.g. VH-1’s “Behind the Music

Tertiary sources

• A bibliography of articles and books about the musician
• An index or database that includes articles about the musician
• A library catalog in which you can search for books on the musician

Information can come from many sources. The farther away from the original source the information is found, the more likely it is to be filtered, interpreted, condensed or otherwise changed. There are primary, secondary and tertiary sources of information.

Information in its original form, when it first appears

• Has not been published anywhere else or put into a context, interpreted, filtered, condensed, or evaluated by anyone else

Examples are a professor’s lecture, newspaper articles written by people at the scene of an event, the first publication of a scientific study, an original artwork, a handwritten manuscript, letters between two people, someone’s diary, historical documents such as the U.S. Constitution

Information ABOUT a primary or original source

• Has been removed from its original source and repackaged
• Restates, rearranges, examines or interprets information from one or more primary sources

Examples are your classmate’s notes on a professor’s lecture, a newspaper article reporting on a scientific study published elsewhere, an article critiquing a new CD, an encyclopedia article on a topic, a biography of a famous person

Also, secondary information:

• Leads you to primary information

Examples are an index to newspaper articles or an index to articles from scientific research journals, a bibliography of an author’s works

Information that is a distillation or a collection of primary and secondary sources.

• Even further removed from the original information than a secondary source.
• Leads you to secondary information

Examples are a bibliography of critical works on an author, an index to general periodical articles, a library catalog