What is a primary document?

Dissertations, scientific reports, and patent documents are primary documents; most journal papers and conference papers are primary documents.

Table of contents, bibliography, abstracts, and indexes are secondary documents.

Monographs, reviews, encyclopedias, standard documents, and product samples are tertiary documents. Review articles in journal articles and conference papers fall into the third category. A small part of the dissertation is a review paper, which also belongs to tertiary literature.