Identifying Different Types of Sources/Tertiary Sources

Tertiary Sources

Generally, tertiary sources are not relied on in scholarly communication, in part because they are often not peer-reviewed, but also because of their distance from the sites of inquiry and scholarly conversation.

• Tertiary sources typically only report research/findings, and do not add to them, therefore they aren't typically used as a source in STEM research writing.
• Tertiary sources are compiled from the primary and secondary literature, and are often written in slightly less scholarly terms to appeal to an interested but often non-specialist audience. For example, most encyclopedias and textbooks use information from primary and secondary sources but don’t generally provide references to these sources, making it difficult to check for accuracy or to consult these to add more specific detail to the points the tertiary source makes.
• While tertiary sources, when published by academic publishers, are typically written by subject-matter experts, and can provide a very useful introduction for those new to a field, they are less credible as a source because they rely on the reader accepting the content without double-checking claims against the primary and secondary sources.
• Generally, avoid using tertiary sources in your writing; rather, focus on primary and secondary sources, because they are where the more focused and reliable scholarly conversation happens.

It is also important to understand that although there are types of sources (such as journal articles, review articles, blogs etc.) that typically fall into the primary, secondary, tertiary classification system, it is not the format that makes them one of these types; it is purely the link between the author(s) and the material itself, whether the material has been peer-reviewed, and how specific the information in it is.