4. Secondary Literature

Contents

What is secondary literature?

Secondary literature refers to scholarly texts that provide information about a subject of investigation. In addition to purely factual information, they also contain findings, theses and thoughts of the authors. They also serve to verify information in primary sources.

Even though secondary literature must meet the criteria of scholarly rigor, divergent research views and research results may arise. And, of course, secondary literature can also contain errors. For this reason, the information it contains must always be critically scrutinized and compared with other sources (primary sources, other secondary literature). Whether a source is a primary or secondary source depends on the object of investigation.

Primary vs. secondary sources: a self-test

Types of secondary literature

There are various types of secondary literature, some of which differ considerably in terms of scope, structure and content. A basic distinction is made between independent and non-independent literature. Independent literature refers to all texts that have been written and published by one or more authors. Non-independent literature refers to all texts in which editors (in addition to the authors themselves) are also responsible for the content and scholarly quality, for example by specifying the choice of topic, text structure or content orientation.

Commentary on translations

Overview literature

These types of texts are suitable for a quick initial overview of a research topic and usually contain essential basic information.

a) Lexicons, encyclopedias

reproduce the entire body of knowledge considered to be secure (“lexicon knowledge”)
Universal lexicons (e.g. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and MGG Online; New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians or Oxford Music Online)
Specialized lexicons (e.g. on groups of people, composers, genres, musical styles, epochs, musical instruments)
Dictionaries (music-specific and general)
Lexicons from related disciplines

b) Handbooks

usually organized by subject: e.g. musicians, genres, epochs, history of the discipline, research methods, etc.
not always designed to be exhaustive, but to provide an in-depth overview of a topic
can sometimes convey a certain point of view of the authors
usually contain an overview of current research debates and further questions

Specialized literature

Specialized scholarly literature deals with specific questions and research topics in greater depth. In contrast to overview literature, it usually contains analyses or interpretations of primary sources.

a) Independent

Monographs (books by one or more authors on a specific topic)
- Special forms: Qualification publications (Bachelor’s/Master’s/Diploma theses, dissertations, habilitations); IMPORTANT: Pay attention to quality!
Collected volumes (collected contributions/articles by several authors, e.g. conference proceedings, commemorative publications, yearbooks)
Publication series (institutional or thematic focus)
Specialist journals (regularly published)

b) Non-independent

Journal articles (with and without peer review process)
Contributions to edited volumes (including encyclopedia and handbook articles)

Special cases

In addition to general and specialized literature, there are other types of texts that can contain information on research topics. These are often written by experts. Nevertheless, they often do not meet the criteria for scholarly rigor.

Essays (subjective, opinion-forming, often literary, rarely with references for sources)
Reviews (contain critical opinions and personal judgments on academic literature)
CD booklets, program booklet texts (so-called “grey literature” = not published by a publisher, without academic quality assurance)

Test your knowledge!

...and how about Wikipedia? The internet as a source of information

The internet offers a multitude of new information possibilities:

many academic publications and databases now available online (scans, e-books, e-journals, online encyclopedias)
numerous primary sources accessible online (YouTube, Spotify, digital copies of manuscripts, printed music and images, etc.)
a variety of new research options (digital library catalogs, full-text search)

However, it also poses a whole range of new problems in terms of compliance with the criteria of scholarly rigor:

retrievability, continuity and long-term availability of information
scholarly quality assurance often not guaranteed
text generation by artificial intelligence as a source of error and fraud (refer to the section on plagiarism)

Special problems with Wikipedia:

verifiability of the mostly anonymous authors often not possible
text content often without correct proof, plagiarism is regularly a problem
especially with controversial topics, conflicts of opinion, targeted dissemination of false information (so-called "Edit Wars")

Rule of thumb

All information from the internet that goes beyond a rough outline of the topic and is intended for further academic use must be checked against secondary scholarly literature! The internet can be the starting point, but should never be the end point of research!