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.
“Empirical studies are reports of original research; [… they] consist of distinct sections that reflect the stages in the research process and that appear in the following sequence:” (APA 6th ed., p. 10; APA 7th ed. pp. 4-9, 77-108):
Take a look at this interactive guide to scholarly peer-reviewed articles. It shows all the elements common to empirical studies.
This table can help you to decide whether the article you found is a primary empirical article (scholarly and peer-reviewed) suitable for your literature review in this course:
The following are scholarly peer-reviewed articles that are neither empirical nor primary. These would not be suitable for your literature review:
References:
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed., 2nd printing). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
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:
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