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How do I know whether this article is a primary source? Article citation, in APA format: Tovee, M. J.; Tasker, K.; Benson, P. J. (2000). Is symmetry a visual cue to attractiveness in the human female body? Evolution & Human Behavior, 21(3), 191-200. As discussed on the last page, certain types of sources are likely to have primary research in them, and other sources have secondary material in them. Once you've found an article from a journal or book that you think is reporting primary literature, there are several clues to look for to confirm that you have a primary source. When you look at an article in the journal at left, Evolution and Human Behavior, notice: The articles have a particular format, including Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. The abstract (see below) gives specifics about the methods (such as the number of participants and their ages, and the type of tasks they were asked to do), and analysis of the results (e.g., ratings of attractiveness were not different across the symmetric and asymmetric groups of images). When you actually read the article you will find full methods and results sections. Usually you will see graphs and tables describing the data. In contrast, secondary sources will briefly summarize methods and data in the text, and will sometimes have graphs and tables, but will not have the "Methods" and "Results" headings, and will have very little detail about the numerical results, the statistical tests used to analyze the data, and specifics of the methods.

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