Primary Sources are first had accounts from a time period or event and are created by those who had involvement or connection to these events. They are original documents, as opposed to sources discussing original documents.
Examples: diaries, transcripts, speeches, datasets, survey data interviews, photographs & videos capturing an event, newspapers, etc.
Secondary Sources interpret, analyze, and discuss primary sources. They are created one step removed from the original event or document.
Examples: books about an event, journal articles,
Popular sources are articles written by journalists for general public consumption and typically cover current or pop culture events. These source have few citations if any and will typically be in the format of hyperlinks to other articles. These articles are usually only reviewed by a staff or chief editor of the publication. When viewing popular resources online you might also notice the use of ad space on the page.
Examples: Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone
Scholarly sources are articles written by researchers or experts in a particular field with the purpose of sharing results, reports, or research with fellow scholars in the academic community. These articles will have extensive citation, using either footnotes or endnotes as well as a robust bibliography. The editing process these articles go through is called Peer Review and must be completed before being published in a journal. You can learn more about Peer Review below.
Examples: New England Journal of Medicine, Developmental Psychology, American Literature
Peer Review is the process that articles go through to be accepted into a journal publication. This process is unique to the articles format and is often what we use as an indicator of a “scholarly” article. Researchers will submit their articles to a journal for anonymous review by other scholars in the field and eventually will either be accepted or rejected from the journal. It's important to note this can take take anywhere from a few months to a few years. Due to the lengthy process, when conducting your research it is possible the most current publication you find may be up to a few years old.