Primary sources in science have to:
Most of the time, we consider peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles to be the model primary sources in science.
Peer-reviewed journal articles reporting original research are empirical studies. They are organized in a way that reflects the research process:
Take a look at this interactive guide to scholarly peer-reviewed articles. It shows all the elements common to empirical studies.
Please refer to page 10 of the Publication Manual of the APA (2010) for more details on empirical studies and other types of publications in psychology. We have print copies of the Manual in the library at the reference desk (call number BF76.7 .P83 2010). No completely electronic copies of the 6th edition are available.
References:
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Day, RA, and Gastel, B. (2006). How to write and publish a scientific paper. 6th ed. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.
A good starting point is the specialized psychology journal article database called PsycINFO. PsycINFO lets you search all the key research journals in psychology at the same time.
Ulrich's Periodical Directory lets you see whether a journal in which you found your article is scholarly and peer-reviewed.
Search for the title of the journal in Ulrich's
If the journal is peer-reviewed, you will see a REFEREE'S T-shirt image beside the title: