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Primary, or "statistical" sources are data that are collected primarily for creating official statistics, and include statistical surveys and censuses. Secondary, or "non-statistical" sources, are data that have been primarily collected for some other purpose (administrative data, private sector data etc.).
Raw data (sometimes colloquially called "sources" data or "eggy" data, the latter a reference to the data being "uncooked", that is, "unprocessed", like a raw egg) are the data input to processing. A distinction is made between data and information, to the effect that information is the end product of data processing. Raw data that has ...
Secondary data refers to data that is collected by someone other than the primary user. [1] Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses , information collected by government departments, organizational records and data that was originally collected for other research purposes. [ 2 ]
Sources of information are commonly categorized as primary, secondary, or tertiary sources.In brief, a primary source is one close to the event with firsthand knowledge (for example, an eyewitness); a secondary source is at least one step removed (for example, a book about an event written by someone not involved in it); and a tertiary source is an encyclopaedia or textbook that provides a ...
Gathering data can be accomplished through a primary source (the researcher is the first person to obtain the data) or a secondary source (the researcher obtains the data that has already been collected by other sources, such as data disseminated in a scientific journal).
A primary source can have all of these qualities, and a secondary source may have none of them. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, not merely mindless, knee-jerk reactions to classification of a source as "primary" or "secondary".
Examples in which a source can be both primary and secondary include an obituary [23] or a survey of several volumes of a journal counting the frequency of articles on a certain topic. [23] Whether a source is regarded as primary or secondary in a given context may change, depending upon the present state of knowledge within the field. [24]
"There can be grey areas when determining if an item is a primary source or a secondary source. For example, newspaper journalists may interview eyewitnesses but not be actual eyewitnesses themselves. They also may have completed research to inform their story. Traditionally, however, newspapers are considered primary sources…. Examples of ...