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Definitions

Scholarly Literature

Scholarly Literature is written for a professional audience. In psychology you will normally find scholarly literature in two places: professional journals and books. Scholarly literature is divided into Primary and Secondary literature, and there are very important differences between these two types of literature. See below. Books that contain scholarly literature consist of chapters, written by different authors, on related topics.

Types of Scholarly Literature

Primary Literature: Scholarly publications that report original research are called primary sources. In the sciences primary literature is usually found in journal articles and is usually reviewed by other professionals before publication. The best tip for finding primary literature is to look for the specific structure that is found in written reports of scientific studies: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

If the article does not have a methods and results section, then it probably is a secondary source rather than a primary source.

Secondary Literature: Scholarly publications that describe, interpret, analyze, evaluate, or otherwise comment on primary sources are called secondary sources. These can include journal articles, but are most often books written for a scholarly audience. Text books and reference books are also secondary sources. Note that popular sources (such as Time Magazine articles) are secondary literature too. They describe, interpret, analyze, or evaluate primary literature, but they are not written for a scholarly, scientific audience. They are popular literature.

Primary Research Journals	Secondary, review articles	Secondary Sources, no new research reported	Reference Sources
		Handbook of Aging and Cognition	Mental Measurements Yearbook.

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