CRES is a field that is often researched and debated in popular media, and therefore you may be conducting a lot of your research in resources such as news sites, blogs, podcasts, and other new media formats. Because these sources are not scholarly and therefore do not go through peer review or other academic editing processes, it can sometimes be harder to verify the information in them. However, this does not mean that they are bad sources of information! When you are considering the veracity of information from a popular source there are a few things to consider:
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.
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 articles 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.
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!
How can you tell if you have a scholarly article in your hand?
Here are some tips: