Primary versus Secondary Sources

As you know, there are many genres of writing contained in a library. In the non-fiction category, you will find a lot of non-fiction articles and books that analyze the meaning of fiction. 

The non-fiction, academic articles and books that analyze fiction are called secondary sources.

Secondary sources serve to analyze the meaning of primary sources. They often look at fiction texts carefully to derive meaning from the text itself, literary elements used in the work, literary theory, and historical contexts. 

Primary sources are the original texts themselves that are being analyzed. In our case, you will use secondary, non-fiction sources that examine works of science-fiction to help you to write essays about our primary source, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. 

Click here for more information on primary and secondary sources. Links to an external site.