In the social sciences primary sources may be statistics from the U.S. Census, election polls, a government law, or scholarly articles that present the findings of original research.

Using the library's research databases can help you find articles that report original research as well as track down primary sources in an article's references.

Recognizing a primary source article

To help identify original research articles look for terms like Methods or Methodology, Results (usually followed by tables or statistics), and Discussion in the database record, article abstract, or article itself.