Instructors often ask students to find “scholarly”, “academic”, or “peer reviewed” sources of information for their research. These terms all refer to the same type of information – sources based on in-depth research, and are considered higher in quality and more reliable for your research.
These sources can range from chapters within books or entire books, or journal articles, but all have common characteristics that can help you recognize that type of information.
Although it is not always appropriate to use scholarly articles, they are considered to be the gold standard for quality.
What is a scholarly article?
Often referred to as "peer-reviewed" or "academic," scholarly articles are concerned with academic study, especially research, exhibiting methods and attitudes of a scholar.
What are the general characteristics of scholarly articles?
What are substantive news articles?
These are often newspaper articles or articles published in high-quality, serious magazines, such as The Economist, U.S. News and World Report, National Geographic, and Scientific American. You might also be able to find these types of articles on newspaper or magazine websites, as well as those by major news corporations like CNN, Fox News, or Huffington Post.
What are the characteristics of substantive news articles?
What are popular articles?
These articles are usually published in popular magazines, like Sports Illustrated, Ebony, People, Shape, and Rolling Stone, and are geared towards an audience that has an interest in that topic (sports, popular culture, music, etc.)
What are the characteristics of popular articles?
Why do I need to evaluate my sources? Because your paper is only as good as your sources.
Let's use a practical example to illustrate this. Pretend you are fixing up an old car, and you'd like to sell it for a small profit. A lot of parts in the car don't work, so you need to buy some to get it up and running. Can you go to the junkyard and just get any old parts? No, not if it you want it to run.
First, you need to have an understanding of how that particular car works, and then you need to be sure that you have good quality parts. You don't want the car to break down right after someone buys it. The car will only be as good as the parts that you put into it.
Writing a paper is like fixing up that car. You can't just use any old source that you find on the Internet or in the library's databases. First, you need to have an understanding of your topic or argument. Then you need to be sure that you pick sources that are not only appropriate to your thesis, but ones that are also of good quality. Like the car, you don't want your paper breaking down halfway through!
Here are tips and guidelines for evaluating sources.