In health science, Primary Sources will look a lot like your lab reports and will include the following sections:

•  Introduction
•  Methods
•  Results
•  Discussion
•  Conclusion

Some keywords to look for:

• Randomized controlled trial
• Cohort Study 
• Case Control Study
• Clinical trial
• Participants and methods:
  1. Participants will often be divided into two or more groups, each receiving a different “treatment”; there may also be a defined control group that receives no “treatment”
  2. Methods will be detailed and include descriptions of the different “treatments” the participants receive
     1. Often times the study is set up as follows:
        1. Pre-treatment data collection
        2. Treatment (or control)
        3. Post-treatment data collection

Secondary resources will look very similar to a primary reference and include the same sections including introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion

Some keywords to look for:

• Systematic review
• Meta-analysis
• Review article
• Editorial
• A comparative review

Methods: Will describe the literature search strategy and the in-depth statistical analysis used to process all the information

References: Will often be a LARGE list of references compared to standard primary reference studies