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Research in: Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

A guide to research for classes in the CRES department

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources in CRES

Scholarly vs. Popular Resources for CRES Research

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:

  • Authority: Does the creator of this source have the educational background or lived experience to speak with certainty on the topics covered by the source? For a topic like CRES, sometimes the lived experience of someone can be just as or more authoritative than a scholarly credential. For example: if you're doing research on a certain ethnicity, someones first hand experience of being of that ethnic group is more authoritative than an academic essay written about that ethnic group by a scholar not of that ethnicity. 
  • Process: While a popular resource might not have the peer review process, many of them do go through an editorial process before being published. Is the source from a newspaper with credentialed journalists? Does this podcast episode list it's editors and researchers in the show notes or verbally at the end of the podcast? Investigate!
  • Citations: Whether it is a scholarly journal article or a youtube video, there is always an expectation to cite your sources if you are using other people's work in the creation of your own product. This may look like a list of sources given at the end of a presentation, or someone may verbally cite another source while mentioning it in their video or podcast. Not only do citations allow you to determine if someone has done their research on a topic well enough to speak for themselves on it, it also provides you with an opportunity to discover more sources about a same or similar topic. Always be on the look out for people's citations, whether you are working with scholarly or popular resources. 

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. 

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 to Spot Fake News Infographic. CONSIDER THE SOURCE Click away from the story to investigate the site, its mission and its contact info. READ BEYOND Headlines can be outrageous in an effort to get clicks. What’s the whole story? CHECK THE AUTHOR Do a quick search on the author. Are they credible? Are they real? SUPPORTING SOURCES? Click on those links. Determine if the info given actually supports the story. CHECK THE DATE Reposting old news stories doesn’t mean they’re relevant to current events. IS IT A JOKE? If it is too outlandish, it might be satire. Research the site and author to be sure. CHECK YOUR BIASES Consider if your own beliefs could affect your judgement. ASK THE EXPERTS Ask a librarian, or consult a fact-checking site.

Photo of a worksheet titled "source checklist". Text on the image reads "Author Who is the author? How is the author qualified? Is the author an expert? Does the author have bias? (Remember that a bias may not be directly stated.) Be wary if you cannot determine an author or group responsible for the content you are reading! Host or Publisher Who hosts the site? OR Who publishes this resource? What is their purpose and audience? Does the host/publisher have bias? (Remember that a bias may not be directly stated.) What is the domain extension? The publisher and/or domain can help you determine how reputable a website is. For example, .gov is the domain for United States government sites and .edu is for US Educational institutions. Note that not all .com sites are unreliable and not all .org sites are reputable -- .org simply means that the website is for a non-profit group. Source Does the resource provide its sources? Does it refer/link you to other credible sources? Is the information able to be cross-referenced? Currency Is the site regularly updated? When was it published? Is there any information which seems out-of-date?

How can I Tell if my Article is Scholarly or Popular?

How can you tell if you have a scholarly article in your hand? 

Here are some tips: 

  • Most scholarly articles will be published in academic journals. Magazine and newspaper articles are not scholarly.  Some, but not all, books are scholarly -- it depends on who wrote them and how they were published. 
     
  • Scholarly resources will always include citations and a bibliography. Other resources usually cite very few or no other sources, and will have only a short bibliography or none at all. 
     
  • If you see citations, that doesn't necessarily mean that the source you have is scholarly. If you're not sure, check for information like: the author's name and professional title; where the article was published (was it an academic journal?); who published the article; or who the article was intended for. 
     
  • Book reviews and editorials (opinion pieces) are never scholarly, even when they are published in scholarly journals. They are often very short and contain only one person's perspective on the specific work, and therefore are not very quotable or authoritative on the subject area the reviewed work is about. However, book reviews and editorials can be helpful in your understanding of certain sources- reading a book review of a source you plan to consult for your work can help you frame the main ideas of the work better, and understand the work from the view point of other experts in the field.