Secondary information is one sort of quantitative data that was already collected by another person for any different purpose to yours. For instance, this might mean using:

• data collected with a hotel on its customers through its guest history system.
• data provided with a marketing organization.
• annual school testing reports.
• government health statistics.

Secondary data may be used diversely:

• You can just report the information in the original format. If that’s the case, then its likely the spot for this data come in your primary introduction or literature review as support or evidence for the argument.
• That you can do something using the data. If you are using it (evaluate it or re-interpret it) for any different purpose towards the original then your probably place could be within the ‘Analysis of findings’ portion of your dissertation.

Example. Among this usage was the job on suicide transported out by Durkheim. He required the state suicide statistics of various countries (recorded by coroners or their equivalent) and examined them to find out if he could identify variables that indicates many people are more inclined to commit suicide than the others. He found, for instance, that Catholics were less inclined to commit suicide than Protestants. In this manner, he required data that were collected for a significant different purpose and tried on the extender in the own study – but he’d to perform a large amount of comparisons and record correlations themself to be able to evaluate the information. (See Haralambos, 1995, for information on Durkheim’s work).

Most research necessitates the assortment of primary data (data that you simply collect initially hands), which is what students focus on. Regrettably, many research reports don’t include secondary data within their findings section even though it is perfectly acceptable to do this, supplying you’ve examined it.

It is usually smart to use data collected by another person whether it exists – it might be on the much bigger scale than you can aspire to collect and may lead for your findings significantly.

As secondary data continues to be collected for any different purpose to yours, you need to address it carefully. The fundamental things to ask are:

• Where has got the data originate from?
• Will it cover the right physical location?
• Could it be current (not very outdated)?
• If you are planning to mix along with other data would be the data exactly the same (for instance, units, time, etc.)?
• If you are planning to check along with other data are you currently evaluating as with like?

Thus you need to create a detailed study of the next:

• Title (for instance, the timeframe the data describes and also the geographical coverage).
• Units from the data.
• Source (some secondary information is already secondary data).
• Column and row headings, if presented in tabular form.
• Definitions and abbreviations, for instance, exactly what does SIC are a symbol of? For instance, how’s ‘small’ defined within the phrase ‘small hotel’? Is ‘small’ in line with the quantity of rooms, worth of sales, quantity of employees, profit, turnover, square meters of space, etc. and do different sources make use of the word ‘small’ diversely? Whether or not the same unit of measurement can be used, there still might be problems. For instance, in Norwegian, firms with 200-499 workers are understood to be ‘medium’, whereas in the united states firms with under 500 workers are understood to be ‘small’.

There are lots of causes of data and many people have a tendency to underestimate the amount of sources and the quantity of data within all these sources.

Sources could be considered:

• paper-based sources – books, journals, periodicals, abstracts, indexes, directories, research reports, conference papers, market reports, annual reports, internal records of organizations, magazines and newspapers
• electronic sources – CD-ROMs, on-line databases, Internet, videos and broadcasts.