Communications

Primary sources

• Contemporary accounts of an event in their original documentation
• Examples could be:
  • diaries
  • letters
  • memoirs
  • journals
  • speeches
  • manuscripts
  • interviews
  • photographs

Examples of Primary Sources in Business

• NASDAQ Stock Quotes
• Record of Organization
• Government Documents
• Maps
• Photographs
• Census Statistics
• Annual Report for a Company
• Financial Ledgers
• Business Reports

Secondary sources

Are used to:

• interpret
• assign value
• draw conclusions
• criticize
• evaluate

A secondary source is always at least one step removed from event or time period that is being written about. Ask yourself these questions to determine if a source is secondary...

• What is the publication date on my source, is it right when the event took place or was it written after, looking back on it?
• Were other sources used and referenced in my source?
• Is it summarizing, evaluating or synthesizing information from other sources?

Examples of Secondary Sources in Business

• Historical stock analysis
• Book about a company or industry
• Journal article about census trends
• Magazine article
• Newspaper article

Effect of minimum wage on unemployment

• A magazine article reporting on recent studies linking the minimum wage to higher unemployment would be a secondary source
• A research article proving that minimum wage is linked to unemployment with supporting data collected for that study by the researcher would be a primary source
• If you are looking at how the media presents the effect of minimum wage on unemployment, newspaper article could be used as a primary source

The exact policy (if you are doing a policy focused paper) you are using to frame your paper would be a primary source, anything written about that policy in terms of analysis, interpretation, conclusions drawn, criticism etc. would be a secondary source.