Primary Secondary Sources

Primary source documents serve as an original source of information about the topic. They provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. Primary sources include published results of research studies, scientific experiments, clinical trials, and proceedings of conferences and meetings. Secondary sources are works of synthesis and interpretation based upon primary sources and the works of their authors. They usually are not evidence, but rather commentary or evaluations of evidence. Some examples would include criticisms, textbooks, magazine and newspaper articles, etc. In primary documents, the language is very formal and is consistently made up of scientific terms, such as “Fibroblastoid cells from BM, UCB, and AT were harvested at subconfluence as described in the previous paragraphs” (Bieback et al., 2006). It’s more of an advanced form of language that mostly professors, doctors, or scientists would know. There is more talk about compounds, scientific formulas, and experimental data than anything. This excerpt reveals the complex language used, “Although bone marrow (BM) has been the main source for the isolation of multipotent MSCs, the harvest of BM is a highly invasive procedure…” (Bieback et al., 2006). Secondary documents are quite the opposite when it comes to language and types of words used. In secondary

“When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential