Know the Source

            There are three main categories of information that are common to academic research. These are primary, peer-reviewed sources. It is vital that those who are seeking to further their education be able to clearly distinguish and identify the nature of their chosen source.

            Primary sourced information offers first-hand knowledge. This type of article seeks to introduce new information within a particular area. Reports of this kind can be identified based on the material they contain. Primary sources often included hypotheses, critical data, key observations, analysis and conclusions that can be drawn from the experiment in their reports. 

            Secondary sources are summarizations of primary sources. Also known as review articles, rather than introduce new knowledge or study in a given area, the review article offers interpretations of previously published information. The review article can be identified by how information is presented. These types of articles are often targeted to those who work in a certain field, offer speculations on upcoming research and opinions on current debates. The review articles can be useful when researching unfamiliar topics by offering an introductory summary on a particular topic.

            The peer review process which critical analysis and critique of original materials performed by experts in the observed field. This process seeks to verify the validity of work often before it published.  This process begins when materials is submitted for print to a journal. Editors will then review the material for content and accept or reject it. If the material is accepted, it goes on for further peer review. There are four types of peer-review that material can go through. These are single and double blind studies and open and hidden peer reviews. Single blind studies do not reveal the reviewers to the author of the printed material, whereas in double blind studies both author and reviewer are unknown. In open peer reviews, both the author and reviewers are known to one another. This contrast with hidden reviews when the reviewers know the author of the material, but the author does not know identity of his or her critics. The peer review process is important because it can point of flaws in studied information and often help to fill in missing explanations between drawn conclusions. 

            It is important to note that while both review articles and peer-reviewed articles offer summarizations and observations of previously printed studies they differ from one another. Review articles have not been critiqued by experts and do not capture all of the data available on a given subject. Furthermore, peer-reviewed articles most often appear in journals that have a list of editors and referees who have reviewed, edited and critiqued that article in question.

            When presented with two articles an mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — Preliminary Report and COVID-19 vaccine: A recent update in pipeline vaccines, their design and development strategies one can clearly distinguish between the primary and the peer-reviewed source. The article an mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — Preliminary Report is a primary source. This can be determined by keys terms included in its report such as methods, discussion. The article COVID-19 vaccine: A recent update in pipeline vaccines, their design and development strategies is a peer-reviewed source. This is distinguished by key terms within the article such as authors have no declaration of conflict of interest. Furthermore, this article contains a list of those who reviewed and contributed to this article.