Identifying & Evaluating Sources
During your time at Holy Cross, you may find yourself using a combination of both popular and scholarly sources.
A popular resource is a resource for 'popular' consumption -- it has been written so that most people can easily read and understand it. This might include newspapers or magazines, some books, and some journals written for people in specific jobs. While there is usually an editor who checks these sources for good writing and for errors, this is mostly done by a single person rather than a group. Popular articles are usually written by journalists or professional writers, although sometimes they are written by experts on a specific topic.
Examples: Magazine articles, blogs, news articles
Scholarly sources are written by experts on a particular subject (for example, a professor or other researcher). They also go through an extra process of review and approval by a group of other experts before they can be published. Usually, scholarly sources are written in 'academic-ese', meaning they are full of technical jargon, and designed to be read by other scholars. You will probably find yourself using many scholarly sources in your other Holy Cross classes. However, because scholarly sources take a long time to be approved and published, they are not good sources for current news. You will usually find academic articles published in professional journals, which are often behind paywalls and hard to access freely outside of university settings.
Examples: Academic Journal Articles, Books or Book Chapters published by Academic Publishing houses
No matter what you're researching or what kinds of information you're working with, you should always interrogate your sources. Situate your source within the context of the timeline, the audience, the content, etc. Think of it like doing a background check!
- Source Checklist WorksheetDownload this PDF for a copy of this worksheet to use for your research!
Academic Journal Articles
Academic Journals are professional publications containing articles about a certain field of study written by experts. Articles published in these journals are typically peer reviewed, meaning they are read, edited, and eventually approved by other experts in the field. These articles are an example of a scholarly resource, since they are written and reviewed by experts and published in respected academic journals.
- HC Libraries Arts and Humanities English JournalsThis is a collection of all the E-Journals Holy Cross has pertaining to the arts and Humanities, including literature and creative writing. You can browse through these journals to find resources pertaining to your thesis topic, or search for your topic more directly in Cross Search and narrow the results to Academic Journals in the search filters.
Books and E-Books
Books and Ebooks by experts in any given field of study are considered excellent scholarly resources. Books focused entirely on a certain academic subject are often referred to as Scholarly Monographs. The library has a large collection of physical books for you to use for your thesis, as well as access to a great deal of E-books. You can search the Library Catalog directly by going to the library homepage and toggling the search bar over to "library catalog." This will show you results for what the library physically holds or has digital access to.
Library of Congress Call numbers for English
P- Philology, Linguistics
PA - Greek/Latin Language and Literature
PJ - Oriental Languages and Literatures
PK - Indo-Iranian Languages and Literatures
PL - Languages and Literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, and Oceania
PN- Literature (General)
PQ - French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Literature
PR - English Literature
PS - American Literature
PT- German, dutch Flemish, Afrikaans, Scandinavian, Old Norse, Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Modern Icelandic, Forese, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Literatures
Academic Dissertations and Theses
Academic Dissertations and Theses is just what it sounds! People who wrote doctoral or master's qualifying academic works sometimes publish them, and many are findable through Cross Search. While these are considered scholarly resources, dissertations and theses should be carefully evaluated. They are not technically peer-reviewed in any way and therefore should be fact checked and verified before you consider using one in your own research. If you would like to search for this resource in particular, you can limit search results to Dissertations/Theses in our library catalog search filters.