I disagree with Jim here. Most of what Stephen Jay Gould writes is
secondary because he is often summarizing the work of others. Stephen Jay
Gould does practice history of science--occasionally, when he does so, he
is giving us primary literature. Most introductory textbooks are tertiary
literature, getting most of their material from other textbooks or from
review articles. [Note: While I am a fan of Gould, most of what he
writes, deriving from his Natural History column, is not even close to
being original scientific literature. Some of his punctuated equilibrium
stuff in the technical journals might be close or his research with snails,
but most of what he writes is just plain old pop science. This is true of
Richard Dawkins as well.]
I think that key idea between primary and secondary literature is the
originality of the work or idea. In science primary literature is based on
new laboratory or theoretical work. Secondary literature summarizes the
laboratory or theoretical work of others. As Art pointed out, primary
literature often overviews the field to set the context for the new work.
This part of research papers is actually a form of secondary literature.
Occasionally a review article will propose some new way of looking at the
primary literature and in doing so becomes at that point primary
literature.
TG
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt