What you'll learn
Every claim you make in Communication Studies rests on information that came from somewhere, and the quality of that source determines the quality of the claim. This topic covers the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary sources, the main channels through which information reaches you, the distinction between fact, opinion, propaganda and misinformation, the criteria by which a source is judged fit for use, and the obligation to acknowledge what you have borrowed. It is the foundation of Module 1 and it governs the exposition and analysis you produce for your portfolio.
Key terms and definitions
Primary source — original material produced at the time or by a direct participant: an interview you conduct, a survey you administer, a diary, a speech, a photograph, an original document.
Secondary source — material that describes, interprets or analyses primary sources: a textbook, a journal article, a documentary, a newspaper analysis piece.
Tertiary source — material that compiles and indexes others: an encyclopaedia, a bibliography, a database, a directory. Useful for orientation, rarely citable as evidence.
Fact — a statement that can be verified against evidence.
Opinion — a statement expressing belief, preference or judgement, which cannot be verified in the same way.
Propaganda — information deliberately shaped to promote a cause or point of view, typically emotive, selective and one-sided.
Misinformation — false information circulated without intent to deceive.
Disinformation — false information circulated deliberately to deceive.
Currency — how recent a source is, and whether recency matters for the topic.
Authority — the credentials of the author or publisher and their standing on the subject.
Relevance — how closely the source matches your specific purpose.
Bibliography — a list of all sources consulted.
Citation — an in-text acknowledgement pointing to a source.
Plagiarism — presenting another person's words, ideas or data as your own.
Core concepts
Primary, secondary and tertiary sources
The distinction is about distance from the event, not about quality or format.
A recording of a speech is primary; a newspaper article analysing that speech is secondary; an encyclopaedia entry summarising the debate is tertiary. A single document can change category depending on your purpose: a 1980s newspaper report is a secondary source about the event it describes, but a primary source about how that event was reported at the time.
Primary sources carry the authority of directness but require interpretation, and they can be partial — a participant's account is shaped by their position. Secondary sources supply analysis and context but stand at a remove and carry their author's framing. Tertiary sources orient you quickly and point to better material, but citing an encyclopaedia as your evidence signals that you stopped at the first step.
Good practice for a portfolio is to combine them: tertiary to orient, secondary to establish context and the state of the argument, primary to supply the evidence that is distinctively yours.
Channels through which information reaches you
Print — books, newspapers, magazines, official reports, pamphlets. Usually edited, often dated, and stable in a way web pages are not.
Electronic — websites, databases, online journals, social media, broadcast archives. Vast, current and uneven; the absence of editorial control is the central issue.
Human — interviews, surveys, focus groups, expert consultation, oral testimony. Particularly important in the Caribbean, where oral tradition carries knowledge that was never written down and where community memory may be the only record of a local event.
Institutional — government departments, statistical offices, regional bodies such as CARICOM and the Caribbean Development Bank, libraries and archives. Authoritative for data, but shaped by the institution's own purposes.
Types of information
Distinguishing these is directly examinable and is the skill most tested in Paper 1 comprehension items.
Factual information can be checked: "CARICOM was established in 1973."
Opinion expresses a view: "CARICOM has been a disappointment." It may be well argued or poorly argued, but it cannot be verified in the way a date can.
Propaganda is deliberately shaped to promote a position. Its markers are emotive vocabulary, one-sidedness, the omission of counter-evidence, repetition, and appeals to fear or loyalty rather than reason. It is not confined to wartime posters; advertising and political campaigning use the same techniques.
Misinformation and disinformation are both false, and the difference is intent. Someone sharing an inaccurate health claim they believe is spreading misinformation; someone manufacturing it to mislead is spreading disinformation. The distinction matters because the remedies differ — correction works on the first, not the second.
A single text often contains several types. A newspaper article may report verified facts, quote an interested party's opinion, and frame both with emotive language, and separating those strands is exactly what an analysis question requires.
Judging a source
Four criteria, applied together.
Authority. Who wrote it, and what qualifies them? Is the publisher a recognised body, a commercial interest, or an anonymous site? An expert writing outside their field carries no more weight than anyone else.
Currency. How recent is it, and does recency matter here? For CARICOM membership arrangements or population statistics it matters greatly. For an account of the 1962 collapse of the Federation, an older source may be closer to events and therefore more valuable.
Relevance. Does it address your specific question, or merely your general topic? A study of Caribbean family structure conducted in Jamaica may not transfer to Trinidad, and saying so is an analytical point rather than a reason to discard it.
Purpose and possible bias. Why was it produced, and who benefits from the reader accepting it? A hotel association's report on tourism's economic contribution is worth reading and worth treating carefully. Bias does not make a source unusable; it makes the source's position part of what you report.
The particular problem of online sources
The absence of editorial control means the criteria above must be applied more actively. Check whether an author is named at all, whether claims are sourced, whether the site sells something related to its claims, and when the page was last updated. Note that a site can be accurate and still be unsuitable — an anonymous blog summarising research correctly is not the source to cite when the research itself is available.
Social media adds a further difficulty: material is stripped of context as it circulates, and a screenshot of a headline is not the article. Trace a claim to its origin before using it.
Acknowledging sources
Every borrowed idea, phrase, statistic or image must be acknowledged, whether quoted directly or put in your own words. Paraphrasing does not remove the obligation; presenting a paraphrased idea without attribution is still plagiarism.
Cite in the text at the point of use and list the source fully in the bibliography. Follow one referencing style consistently. Beyond avoiding a penalty, referencing does analytical work: it shows the reader what your argument rests on and allows them to judge it.
Worked examples
Example 1: Classifying sources
Question: "A student researching attitudes to Creole in schools uses (i) interviews with three teachers, (ii) a journal article on language attitudes in the Caribbean, and (iii) an encyclopaedia entry on creolisation. Classify each source and comment on its usefulness." (9 marks)
Outline. The interviews are a primary source: original data produced by the researcher, directly relevant to the specific question, and supplying evidence available nowhere else — though three teachers cannot represent all teachers, so findings describe those respondents. The journal article is a secondary source: it analyses existing evidence, supplies concepts and context, and situates the student's work in a wider discussion, though it may concern a different territory and period, which should be acknowledged. The encyclopaedia entry is tertiary: useful for orientation and definitions at the start, but too general to cite as evidence and a signal of shallow research if relied on. Conclude that the three serve different functions and that a strong study uses tertiary to orient, secondary for context, and primary for its own evidence.
Example 2: Distinguishing types of information
Question: "Read the following: 'Tourism earned the region record revenue last year. This proves that further hotel development is the only sensible path for our economy, and those who oppose it are enemies of progress.' Identify the types of information present." (8 marks)
Outline. The first sentence is presented as fact and is verifiable in principle against published figures, though no source is given, so it should be treated as an unverified claim. The second sentence is opinion: "the only sensible path" is a judgement, not a checkable statement, and "proves" overstates what a single revenue figure can establish. The final clause carries the markers of propaganda: it dismisses opponents by labelling them rather than addressing their arguments, and appeals to loyalty through emotive language. Note also the logical gap — record revenue does not establish that more development is beneficial, since it says nothing about leakage, environmental cost or distribution.
Example 3: A short evaluation question
Question: "State three criteria you would use to evaluate a website as a source, and explain one." (6 marks)
Outline. Authority, currency and purpose or possible bias. Explaining authority: identify whether an author is named and what qualifies them to write on the subject, and whether the publisher is a recognised institution or an anonymous commercial site — because a claim is only as trustworthy as the person or body standing behind it, and an anonymous page provides no basis for judging that at all.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Confusing primary with reliable. Primary means close to the event, not accurate. A participant's account can be partial or mistaken.
Treating any newspaper article as secondary. It depends on your purpose. As evidence of how an event was reported, it is primary.
Relying on tertiary sources as evidence. Encyclopaedias orient; they do not substitute for the material they summarise.
Confusing opinion with propaganda. Opinion is a stated view, legitimate in itself. Propaganda is deliberately shaped and one-sided. Not every opinion is propaganda.
Confusing misinformation with disinformation. The difference is intent, and questions frequently test it.
Discarding a biased source. Bias is something to report and account for, not automatically grounds for rejection. An interested party's evidence is still evidence, read carefully.
Assuming paraphrasing removes the need to cite. It does not. The idea is still borrowed.
How this links to your School-Based Assessment
Your portfolio depends directly on source work. The exposition requires accurate, well-chosen information on your theme, and the analysis requires you to examine how language is used in material you have gathered — which means selecting sources deliberately rather than taking the first three results.
Three habits pay off. Record the full reference at the moment you use a source, because reconstructing bibliographies later wastes time and produces errors. Keep a note of why you selected each source, since that reasoning is what a justification of sources requires. And where you use a source that is partial or dated, say so and explain how you handled it — acknowledging a weakness you noticed reads far better than presenting a flawed source as though it were unimpeachable.
Exam technique for sources and types of information
Classify by distance from the event, and be ready to explain why a source's category can shift with the researcher's purpose.
Learn the four evaluation criteria as a checklist — authority, currency, relevance, purpose — and apply all four when asked to evaluate a source.
Look for propaganda markers explicitly: emotive vocabulary, one-sidedness, omitted counter-evidence, labelling of opponents, appeals to fear or loyalty.
In comprehension items, separate the strands. A passage usually contains fact, opinion and framing together, and identifying which sentence is which is where the marks are.
Never assert that a source is unreliable without a reason. Name the criterion it fails.
Quick revision summary
Sources are primary, secondary or tertiary according to their distance from the event, and a source's category can change with the researcher's purpose. They reach you through print, electronic, human and institutional channels, with human sources particularly important in a region where oral tradition carries knowledge never written down. Information itself divides into fact, which can be verified; opinion, which expresses a judgement; propaganda, which is deliberately shaped, emotive and one-sided; and misinformation and disinformation, which are both false and differ only in intent. Judge every source against authority, currency, relevance and purpose, applying these more actively online where editorial control is absent. Bias is a reason to read carefully and report the source's position, not automatically a reason to discard it. Every borrowed idea, phrase or statistic must be cited whether quoted or paraphrased, and referencing does analytical work by showing the reader what the argument rests on.