Using Scholarly Sources
A scholarly source has been written by someone who is knowledgeable about the subject (for example, a professor or other researcher), and has gone through an extra process of review and approval by a group of other experts. If an article is peer-reviewed, that means those peers have agreed that it is a valuable piece of research. Usually, scholarly articles are written to be read by other scholars.
A popular resource is a resource written 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 someone still reads and corrects popular sources, this is mostly done by a single person rather than a group and is less intense.
Click on the chart below to see a comparison of scholarly and popular sources and their characteristics.
Some tips for identifying scholarly sources:
- Most scholarly articles are published in academic journals or edited collections. Articles from magazines, trade journals, or newspapers are not scholarly. However, you can certainly use them as primary sources or to inform your conversation (e.g., when mentioning very recent events which have not yet been addressed in scholarly literature).
- You may also find scholarly books, which can include edited collections (i.e., collections of scholarly essays compiled and published as a book) as well as more substantial scholarly works. These books are often published by prestigious university presses and are usually written by authors who are professors or some other kind of expert in their field. Not all books are scholarly, and even books written by experts are sometimes geared more towards a popular audience (think of 'popular history' books, for example). The tone and intended audience of a book can offer some clues as to which category it falls in.
- Whether books or articles, scholarly sources will always include some combination of in-text citations, footnotes, and/or bibliography. You should expect to see that a scholarly source has engaged with and referenced a range of other academic literature on the topic. Popular sources generally include few or no citations, and will include only a brief bibliography or notes section if any at all. However, not all sources with citations are scholarly (think of Wikipedia for example).
- If you're not sure about a source, check for information like: the author's name/credentials; the publication it appears in or the publisher; or the intended audience. You can also ask your professor or any of the reference librarians.
- Book reviews and editorials are never considered scholarly, even when published in scholarly journals. This is because they are often more superficial and based on personal opinion; more importantly, they do not generally engage with or contribute substantially to the scholarly conversation on a topic.
ARTICLES
Not all materials in the research databases are scholarly. In some databases, you can narrow your results to include only those articles published in scholarly journals. This will eliminate most (but not all!) non-scholarly documents from your search results. Remember that some articles published in scholarly journals, such as book reviews or editorials, are not scholarly themselves.To review what makes an article scholarly or non-scholarly, check out the What Is a Scholarly Article? tab.
Databases that can limit to scholarly journal articles include the blue-and-green EBSCO databases (Academic Search Premier, MLA Bibliography, etc.) and all ProQuest databases (among others), as well as CrossSearch.
JSTOR does not have this option because it consists entirely of articles from scholarly journals (although, note that it contains many book reviews, editorials and other brief notes which are not technically scholarly).
BOOKS
Unlike articles, there is no convenient checkbox to search the catalog for scholarly books only! To find scholarly books, you will need to make judgment calls about the books you find in the catalog based on information like author, publisher, length and general tone. Sometimes you may need to view the book in person.
One way to locate scholarly books on your topic is to use a general database like JSTOR or another search tool like CrossSearch to locate book reviews published in academic journals. While book reviews are not scholarly themselves, they often review books which are in fact scholarly works.
Whether searching on the web or browsing the library stacks, it's important to pay attention to the sources you are using and evaluate them critically. This, of course, is usually more crucial for web resources, but is good practice when doing research of any kind.
Questions to help you evaluate sources as your research:
Author
o Who is the author?
o How is the author qualified?
o Is the author an expert?
o Does the author have bias? (Remember that a bias may not be directly stated.)
o If no author is listed, why? Be wary if you cannot determine an author or group responsible for the content you are reading.
Host or Publisher
o Who hosts the site? OR Who publishes this resource?
o What is their purpose and audience?
o Does the host/publisher have bias? (Remember that a bias may not be directly stated.)
For Websites: Domain
o What is the domain extension?
This 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 institutuions. 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.
Sources
o Does the resource provide its sources?
o Does it refer/link you to other credible sources?
o Is the information able to be cross-referenced?
Currency
o Is the site regularly updated? OR When was the resource published?
o Is there any information which seems out-of-date?