Sometimes secondary sources can be more necessary than primary sources when it comes to research projects. I chose my top two secondary sources from websites that are related to my topic of sustainability and recycling within the workforce of my own company, TSS Accounting.  It is important to understand the articles that we are reading and seeing where the information is coming from as well as if it makes sense to use it for our own research. There is a whole lot of information online and in magazines that we do not know whether it is real or if it is just aimed at trying to get the attention of any readers. It is just like with the news media.  No one is going to watch it if everything happens the same every single day and nothing new and exciting is happening. So in regards to articles, newspapers, and websites somehow the readers have to get hooked.  If they are writing about something that is not necessarily true but gets readers then we cannot trust that website or that newspaper.

 

The first source I used is based on the article on a website called Recycling At Work. Recycling At Work is a company that is trying to showcase recycling within the workforce and how it is very easy to implement recycling at work. They have a pledge on their website that any company can sign and when they do so they get discounts and free perks on recycling merchandise as well as on deals for their own company. The company uses “logos” in their article by providing statistics.  They also use incentivization to promote recycling within other people’s workplaces.  Some incentives include free promo materials, 15% off any recycling bin, and to have the pledge signer’s company logo on their website.  The audience for this piece of writing would be companies that are interested in recycling or starting a system within their place and promoting it.  I believe this source is trying to clarify an issue and raise awareness. As I said before it uses logos to back up itself. I think the author uses good quality data to back up why recycling is such a big deal in the workforce.  I did not see any type of biased sentences or anything that would make me doubt the truth of the secondary source.  I think this website does lack a little more depth to it because it is very short. It was probably about 600 words if that and it just says a little bit to get the reader started on recycling and pledging yet but there is not really enough information on there to make a person want to recycle. This website is not going to convince anyone new that is not already interested. It might coerce people that are already interested in recycling but definitely not going to get anybody new.

 

The second source I used was all about how to start an office recycling program within any company. This website uses logos right off the bat because it states “ as much as 90% of office waste in the average workplace can be recycled” (Bos).  This is a huge piece of information because it states how real the recycling problem is and how much we end up throwing out.  The key part about the source was that it gives detailed instructions on how to implement the recycling system in the workplace.  It is not just throwing out facts at anyone. But rather informs them on how to do it by themselves. It is very easy to read and I believe most Americans could probably understand what the article was saying. The article is published on Inc.com which is a modern online magazine type website. It is widely read and very popular among many people.  This article somewhat clarifies the issue of recycling in the workforce and how it must be done because most of what gets thrown out is actually pretty much recyclable. Or most of it is. This source is doing something new in regards to giving people instructions on how to do this versus just telling them about recycling and why it is important which we have seen many times before. The audience is probably going to be company owners that are interested in implementing a recycling system. I think this is a very good approach.  It definitely gets readers hooked because it talks about the steps and if you read one step you kind of want to know what the next step is going to be. This is very educational and good for people to be able to understand is how to create a recycling system within the workplace.  I think something that is a little off on this source is there is no real concrete proof that this was well researched and actually was written by intelligent people.  We could think that just anybody wrote this article because there are no well known people or scientists anyone trusting mentioned.  Therefore it is more difficult to trust an article like this.  Something that is helpful within this is that the article does use an example of someone that is using the system in place but we do not really know who this person is without doing further research.

 

I think both of these sources have good details in them but they both are definitely not primary sources. We can tell just based off of the more common knowledge used. There is no real scientific studies done, there is no real concrete evidence that this is going to work, or why recycling is such a big deal. We just have opinions and comments from people like ourselves that are based on their own personal lives and how recycling impacts them as well as how they implement it in their field. While this is helpful for my article, it does not mean that I can use it for every part of my research project.

 

 

Works Cited

Bos, Peter Vanden. “Starting a Recycling Program.” Inc.com, Inc., 30 Apr. 2010, www.inc.com/guides/2010/04/start-office-recycling-program.html.

“‘Recycling at Work’ Aims to Boost Recycling at Your Workplace by 10%+.” Hometown Dumpster Rental, 2018, www.hometowndumpsterrental.com/blog/recycling-at-work-initiative-aims-to-boost-workplace-recycling.