Topic Description NEW ALL Summary of primary and secondary sources Please separate your sources for the thesis into primary source material (non-peer-reviewed) and secondary (peer-reviewed). What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in finding appropriate sources for your research question? By separating your sources you will come to understand the difference between a source that gives primarily information about the specific research question and a source that contributes to the theoretical framework or conceptual underpinnings of the project. For example, a Congressional Service Research report is not technically a peer-reviewed source because it has only been reviewed internally but it may contain relevant data for your topic. A STRATFOR report may contain relevant information about a hot topic but is has not been vetted externally. Both are considered primary sources and can contain lots of “facts” that you might use in your paper. Don’t rely on authors’ conclusions in primary sources, but do further research in the secondary sources (journal articles and books that have been peer-reviewed) to check out their validity. You should be drawing conclusions from the primary sources and creating unique arguments about them. In the process of creating the arguments, then, look to the secondary sources (things that have been published under the peer-review process) and show how your arguments are filling a gap that the other scholars have left. This is what makes your work unique – and ultimately, publishable.