![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Primary Literature
Apr. 21st, 2008 09:06 amResearching a topic in the primary literature is sort of like browsing Wikipedia.
No, really. Every other paragraph references some other work related to your topic, or potentially related, or giving background information that you think might somehow be relevant. And so youclick those links make a list of those references, and hunt them down in some dusty corner of the library or submit them to Interlibrary Loan, and a week later you have twenty other articles that you read, and find references to still earlier works...
...and finally, you are sorting through journals dating back to 1895 and finding the ultimate references to your species/topic/ecosystem. And the statement that has been cited is something like, "Plants grow in the dirt."
Now I'm off to return these books to Interlibrary Loan.
No, really. Every other paragraph references some other work related to your topic, or potentially related, or giving background information that you think might somehow be relevant. And so you
...and finally, you are sorting through journals dating back to 1895 and finding the ultimate references to your species/topic/ecosystem. And the statement that has been cited is something like, "Plants grow in the dirt."
Now I'm off to return these books to Interlibrary Loan.
