2016-03-07 Current Events: primary/secondary sources

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk
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Homework: read the article on p. 5 of the handout and complete it with the words on the right
1 usual
2 reason
3 following
4 pleasure
5 high
6 craved
7 healthier
8 fat
9 volunteers
10 observed
11 averaged
12 situation
13 normal
14 resist
15 snacks
16 daily
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Now look at the first paragraph of the second article about this research.
http://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/2016/02/29/sleep-loss-boosts-hunger-and-unhealthy-food-choices/

Do you know all the words in this paragraph? Who is the target audience?
It’s directed at educated people who know something about science but aren’t experts in this field. (We sometimes say “the educated layperson”.)
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Finally, look at the abstract on the last page.
http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstract.aspx?pid=30492

This is from an academic research journal (called “SLEEP”). The target audience is other specialists in the same field.
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The SLEEP article is a primary source. Primary sources are written by the people directly involved in something.
Someone who reads the primary source and explains it to other people is a secondary source.
After that, you could talk about a tertiary source, but usually we describe things only as primary and secondary.

What are some advantages of reading primary sources?
- you get the full information, including important details that might not show up in a secondary source (You get it “straight from the horse’s mouth”.)
- The information is not interpreted by other people with their own opinions. (The primary source still has an opinion, though.)
- We can know the assumptions that the authors had.

What are some disadvantages?
- It could be harder to understand (because of technical vocabulary or old language).
- Primary sources are less likely to be in your own language.
- It might have out-of-date information.
- It can be very one-sided.
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Newspapers are secondary (or tertiary, quaternary, etc.) sources for most stories.
They try to have balance between different sides, but it’s possible to have false balance.