An academic source represents a scholarly writing that is reviewed by peers. Most of these will be found in a reference directory. These will represent secondary sources. Primary sources by contrast are original sacred text, personal (non published) interviews, etc.

Academic sources will generally be found on .gov or .edu sites on the web.

Academic Source

An academic source is something written by someone with credentials. These include primary sources, books and professional journal articles. If you are looking for these types of sources I would check out databases like JSTOR, LEXUS-NEXUS, and EBSCOhost to name a few, check with a library for more info. Teachers usually ask for these because they don’t want you taking info from some random idiot’s web site. Primary sources are those which represent the time of the event in question. If you were studying the civil war, a primary source might be the diary of a soldier or the Gettysburg address. The opposite of this is the secondary source which is a representation of past events, i.e. a book or journal article on the civil war. An academic source is just a broad term used to describe legitimate primary and secondary sources.

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RE:
whats an academic source?
whats the difference between that and a primary source

It is best to describe an academic source by what it is not, it is not magazines and newspaper articles, but mostly encyclopedias, academic periodicals, research studies, etc. etc.

A primary source is a document, speech, or other sort of evidence written, created or otherwise produced during the time under study. Primary sources offer an inside view of a particular event. Examples include:

Original documents: autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, speeches

Creative works: art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry

Relics or artifacts: buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry, pottery

i don’t know what you mean by a primary source but an academic source usually refers to Academic Journals, Academic papers……basically, anything that is done and approved by academics, professors etc

When I was in college (3 years ago) they accepted an online encyclopedia, medical journals, dictionaries, or online articles from a legitimates source (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc.) Do NOT use wikipedia. The information is submitted by your average internet user, and while it is verified, it is not considered to be an accurate source.

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