One thing I always mention when I teach research/documentation is that the primary/secondary/tertiary distinction is only a construct of convenience for beginners who do not yet know the critical questions to ask about sources. It plants the idea in one's mind, and then you go from there.
We stopped talking about primary/secondary/tertiary not long after my first year courses in history. Even though it took me until later in my studies to realize that different disciplines had different definitions for these terms, the need to use sources critically did not change from discipline to discipline (although some of the questions to ask did.)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Why not dump the distinction
Date: 2009-05-26 11:05 pm (UTC)We stopped talking about primary/secondary/tertiary not long after my first year courses in history. Even though it took me until later in my studies to realize that different disciplines had different definitions for these terms, the need to use sources critically did not change from discipline to discipline (although some of the questions to ask did.)