Review of literature resources is an important and essential process in development of any research study. Understanding the difference and effectiveness of each type of literary resource will help to answer research questions or test a hypothesis. The three different types of literature resources are primary, secondary, and tertiary. Most new researchers are familiar with primary resources, were the researcher gathers information and data directly from their recruited subjects (Garrard, 2007). When the context is vague, secondary and tertiary resources often get grouped together (Garrard, 2007). The purpose of this paper will be to effectively distinguish secondary and tertiary resources, identify the advantages and disadvantages, how and where to access this data, proper storage and filing once giving access rights, and data ownership.

Distinguishing Secondary from Tertiary Data

Secondary data is data accessed by a researcher outside of the original study. They then produce their own analysis and interpretation, different than the original (Garrard, 2007; Tantawi, 2017). For example, instead of a researcher conducting a questionnaire about patient satisfaction, the data collected by a hospital is used to answer their own hypothesis about patient satisfaction. U.S. Census and Center for Disease Control National Database for Health Statistics as examples of larger public access secondary data sources.

Tertiary data is a collection of primary and secondary data that is filtered and analyzed together. A tertiary resource is of value to a researcher in that it can group information into one database or one article, can lead the researcher to significant primary and secondary resources and datasets, can analyze larger quantities of research studies or research data that are related to one another, and can assist in referencing a comprehensive article or dataset gathered by another researcher (Garrard, 2007). For example, by locating systematic reviews in the Cochrane Library Database, the authors of these articles have already gathered primary and secondary sources and data into one location based on a similar topic. Most systematic review studies will have inclusion and exclusion criteria in their methods and will filter works that do not meet a specific standard. A meta-analysis is another example of tertiary data collection and is defined by pooling statistics systematically from journal articles (Garrard, 2007).