In most cases, you will be required to conduct different forms of study as well as write different papers in the course of your study. You will also need to understand what is meant by primary and secondary sources of literature. Despite the fact that some of these write-ups may seem to be somehow similar, it is important to identify and distinguish between the different forms of papers and methods of research used for scholarly purposes. Not only do the papers differ in the content required, but they also have different structures and format requirements. Different methods used are also relevant to some forms of papers. If you mix them up, the purpose of your paper may be completely lost and you will end up confusing your audience. In this article, we are going to focus on the differences between the literature review and secondary research. To achieve our purpose, we are going to start by clearly defining the two terms and then further break them down to clearly understand the differences. We are also going to look at a few best sources of literature review in research as well as those of secondary literature sources. 

What is a Literature Review? 

By simple definition, a literature review alludes to a detailed summary of previous inquiries that was conducted on a given topic. This kind of work involves the surveying of books, scholarly articles and any other sources that are deemed as relevant to a given area of study. This paper is meant to compute, describe, summarize, and objectively carry out an evaluation and clarification of the previous exploration. The literature review should help you as a writer to clearly understand the nature of the research by offering a theoretical base for the research. The review takes into consideration the work of the previous writers and therefore helps assure the audience that all the work has been clearly perceived. It is, therefore, very important to pick out the best primary and secondary sources of literature review prior to proceeding to the actual writing.

These sources of literature review in research show that you have clearly read, assimilated, and evaluated the original work and that you are able to produce a relevant paper. In this kind of work, you can also use theoretical vs empirical research.

Theoretical vs Empirical Definition

When dealing with empirical research, you focus on data collection and summarizing. The best summary is a model and the best models are held to be true. The use of a specific model to conduct your exploration is referred to as theoretical research. You can also use the theoretical framework in meta-analysis. This is a kind of work that has the sole aim to combine the empirical findings from existing inter-firm resourcefulness literature. It is also important to understand all these concepts as well as the other basics of literature in order to completely and successfully write these papers.

Some of the elements of the literature review that you will need to clearly understand based on your topic will include; types of literary research, steps in the literature review, tertiary literature, primary and secondary sources of literature review and how to best apply them in your paper, conducting appropriate review of secondary literature, and henceforth. Understand all the relevant concepts and rules used will help you to produce a high-quality literature review that can help your audience clearly understand what other authors found on a topic and how your argument is justifiable. Remember, if you are not able to understand all the concepts, great companies that help students, for example, Peachy Essay, are always ready and willing to come to your aid. The company can offer great examples on this type of write-ups including sources of literature review PPTX, sources of literature review PDF, methodology PDFs, and theoretical articles examples which can all help you better understand this kind of work.

What is Secondary Research?

Now that we have a great idea of what a literature review constitutes, let us explore the true meaning of the secondary research. Once we have this, we shall be able to easily distinguish between the two and identify the major differences. By definition, secondary research alludes to the use of already existing data as a method or enquiry. Also referred to as desk research, the method entails summarizing of existing data and collating it in a bid to increase the effectiveness of the exploration. The materials in this kind of study include research material that is already published in research reports or similar documents like other desk research report samples. The secondary literature sources are usually available in websites, libraries, and information that may be included in filled surveys. Some of the data may also be stored by the government and non-government agencies and may be made available for the purpose of research.

Secondary research is always viewed as a cheaper method of exploration than primary research since it employs data that is already in existence unlike where you need to first collect data. In order to successfully complete this kind of inquiries, you will need to understand some basics which include: secondary qualitative data, what is a secondary analysis, review of secondary literature, and some other forms of literary research. All this will be highly important when you are handling this kind of work since you will need to know the best ways to collect this secondary data and analyse it.

Differences between the Literature Review and Secondary Data

As discussed above, literature reviews and secondary research are different in the following ways:

1. The literature review is the detailed summary of previous study that was conducted on a given topic whereas secondary research is the use of already existing data as a method or inquiry.
2. In literature reviews, we can use both primary and secondary sources in the summary whereas, in the secondary research, we conduct a review of secondary literature.There are various types of types of literary research based on the provided topics but they all involve a summary of past works of literature by other authors whereas secondary exploration revolves around secondary sources of information including interviews.
3. The literature review computes, describes, summarizes, and objectively carries out an evaluation and clarification of the previous investigation whereas the secondary research summarizes existing data and organizes it to make the exploration more meaningful.
4. When you are conducting secondary research, you will primarily be expected to use the primary research that others had created in the form of study publications or reports, on the other hand, the literature review you use both primary and secondary research to support a new insight that you contribute. The paper basically summarizes and synthesizes the arguments and ideas that other authors had presented and you do not need to add new contributions.
5. Literature reviews help to provide a useful guide to a particular topic and the different ways through which the authors expressed their ideas in relation to your topic. When you do not have the time to do your personal enquiries, this are important tools since they give an overview based on your topic of exploration. On the other hand, secondary research can be used as a tool to conserve time since it uses data that was initially collected by others instead of forcing one to do their own study.
6. Some of the best sources of secondary data include information that has been collected by government and non-government organizations like census, km progress reports, internet searches and libraries. Primary and secondary sources of literature review include original studies, statistical records, interviews, experimental methods, and secondary and tertiary literature. Tertiary literature is made up of things like fact books, almanacs, bibliographies, dictionaries, handbooks etc.
7. The literature review is usually a scholarly paper that will contain current knowledge that encompasses substantive finding as well as theoretical and methodological contributions based on a given topic. This can be viewed as secondary sources of information that show no evidence of original or experimental work. On the other hand, the secondary research is based on work that was already written and published and provides a basis of knowledge on where relevant information had previously been compiled by those individuals in the past. In this type of investigation, the answers to the questions are already available and you will just need to find the data that coincides with the exploration project.
8. It is best advised to use study questions when conducting secondary research due to the huge volume of information that is always available on even given topic. Literature reviews may just need you to find the topic and search through the relevant primary and secondary sources without the use of research questions since the volume of information is usually not very overwhelming.

When you clearly understand the two, it becomes easier for you to identify the differences. At Peachy Essay, the highly experienced team of experts are able to offer you secondary data project report, literature-based dissertation example PDF, politics dissertation methodology example as well as theoretical analysis example and theoretical article examples which are all meant to be useful resources when you are trying to understand the differences between the two. It is always important to clearly identify the different elements when you need to come up with a great paper.