Primary and Secondary Research and Subject Methods

Research in the Extended Essay can draw on primary sources, secondary sources, or both, and different subjects favor different methods. Understanding these categories, and choosing the approach that fits your question and discipline, is essential to producing analysis rather than summary. This lesson explains the distinction and how method varies across subjects.

Primary versus secondary sources

Primary sources are original materials: raw data you collect, an original literary text, a historical document from the period, a set of experimental results, a photograph, an interview transcript, or a work of art. Secondary sources are others' interpretations and analyses of primary material: scholarly articles, commentaries, textbooks, and reviews. A strong essay usually engages directly with pr