Finding Primary Research Articles in the Sciences: Analyzing a Primary Research Article

• Is the information original/unmediated (primary source) or is it analysis/a summary of findings/an opinion/or otherwise mediated information (secondary source)?

• Does the method section include participants (primary source) or does it describe what databases were searched or how a search was conducted (secondary source)? If the method section describes what databases were searched, most likely it is some type of review or analysis, which is a secondary source (e.g. systematic review, literature review, meta-analysis, scoping review). For more information on types of reviews, please see this page by Duke University medical center library and archives on Types of Reviews

• Is the study a quality improvement (QI) study, which is designed for a particular setting? While this is original research, it is better to avoid quality improvement studies because the study was done for the benefit (quality improvement) of that particular setting. The external validity (whether or not results can apply to different settings) is poor, and therefore the results may not be generalizable to other situations. For more information, please see this Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute page on Quality Improvement vs. Research

• Or do the authors describe the study as a preliminary study or a feasibility study or a pilot study? This type of study is a "study lite” and is designed to test if it is worth doing a full rigorous study.  While this is original research, it is better to avoid preliminary, feasibility, or pilot studies and use a complete study instead. For more information, please see this book chapter on "Preliminary studies and pilot testing."

The image below is of the first and last pages of a scholarly article.  Notice the sections for abstract, introduction, conclusion, and references. Scholarly/Research articles may also contain sections titled literature review, materials, methods, results, discussion, etc.

As you search for articles in the library databases the main component to look for is that the authors did original research on a topic. You will want to ignore any items that appear to be news updates, magazine articles, review articles, editorials, book reviews, etc. 

Click the red tab above (Advanced Search-Databases) to learn how you can limit your database search to peer reviewed articles, narrow the dates of your search, and limit to full text articles.

Image from from NCSU Libraries' Anatomy of a Scholarly Article