How to Identify Primary and Secondary Research Articles
Primary Research Articles
Primary research articles report on a single study performed by the authors.
- Look for evidence of primary research in the article abstract, or in the body of the article:
- The authors conduct the study. The article will report the results of research conducted by the authors to answer a research question or test a hypothesis.
- Look for words indicating that the authors themselves "measured" or "analyzed" or "Investigated" the topic at hand.
- Methods section. The article will usually have a "methods" or "methodology" or "research design" section detailing how the research was conducted or performed.
- Results section and data visualizations. The article should include a "results" section that reports the authors' original findings.
- Look for statistics, graphs, tables, or other data visualizations here.
- The authors conduct the study. The article will report the results of research conducted by the authors to answer a research question or test a hypothesis.
Secondary Research Articles
Secondary research articles analyze, summarize, or interpret existing research findings from other primary studies. "Review" articles are the most common type of secondary research in the health sciences.
Review articles often report on the following:
- The hypothesis, research question, or review topic.
- Databases searched to find primary articles to review—authors should clearly describe where and how they searched for the research included in their reviews. Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses should provide detailed information on the databases searched and the search strategy the authors used.
- Selection criteria for the review—the researchers should describe how they decided which articles to include.
- A critical appraisal or evaluation of the quality of the articles included (most frequently included in systematic reviews and meta-analyses).
- Discussion, results, and conclusions.
Examples: Determining Primary versus Secondary Using the Database Abstract
Information found in the database abstract (PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and other databases) can help you determine whether the article you're looking at is primary or secondary.
Example 1: Primary research article abstract
- Note that in the Objective field, the authors describe their single, individual study.
- In the Materials and Methods section, they describe the number of patients included in the study and how those patients were divided into groups.
These are all clues that help us determine this abstract is describing is a single, primary research article, as opposed to a literature review.
Example 2: Secondary research / review article abstract
- Note that the words "systematic review" and "meta-analysis" appear in the title of the article.
- The Objective field also includes the term "meta-analysis" (a common type of literature review in the health sciences).
- The Data Source section includes a list of databases searched.
- The Study Selection Criteria section describes how the studies were selected for inclusion.
These are all clues that help us determine that this abstract is describing a review article, as opposed to a single, primary research article.
