Page 72 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Unit 10: Role of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Documents in the Growth and Development of Social Science
Seema Sharma, LPU

Unit 10: Role of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Documents Notes

in the Growth and Development of Social Science

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
10.1 Documentary Sources of Information
10.1.1 Primary Sources
10.1.2 Secondary Sources
10.1.3 Tertiary Sources
10.2 Non-Documentary Sources
10.2.1 Formal Sources
10.2.2 Informal Sources
10.3 Non-conventional Sources of Information
10.4 Summary
10.5 Keywords
10.6 Review Questions
10.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
y Identify the sources of primary, secondary and tertiary documents
y Discuss the role of primary, secondary and tertiary documents in growth and development
of social science.

Introduction

The word ‘data’ is Latin in origin, and literally, it means anything that is given. Different sources have
defined the word in different ways. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines data as
“something given or admitted: facts or principles granted or presented: that upon which an inference
of argument is based, or from which an ideal system of any sort is constructed”
UNESCO defines data as ‘facts, concepts of instructions in a formalized manner suitable for
communication, interpretation of processing by human or automatic means’

Types of Data in Social Sciences

1. Data with reference to scale of measurement
y Nominal Data

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