English 301: College Writing and Research

When finding sources for a paper, you are often told you need "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" sources. This page will help you understand what a scholarly source is, where to find scholarly sources, and how to determine if a source you have is scholarly. Here are the key activities on this page:

• Watch the videos about  to scholarly materials and peer-review.
• Review the information about understanding and finding scholarly articles.
• Review the differences between a scholarly book and popular nonfiction.
• Complete the activity; "How much do you know about scholarly articles."

Typical features of a scholarly article:

• Length: scholarly articles are longer, usually at least 8 pages, but there is no set rule, and they usually include diagrams, charts, or graphs

• Bibliography: scholarly articles always have a list of cited works

• Language: scholarly articles are written for scholars and not the general public, so the language is specialized and technical

• Authors: scholarly articles are written by experts who usually have PhD and academic affiliations

• Some databases will allow you to limit your search to scholarly journals, other databases may provide further details about journals such as whether they are scholarly.

• Publisher databases will include information about a peer review process if the journal is scholarly

• If you are still not sure, please ask a librarian.

Just because your article is published in a scholarly journal does not mean your article is scholarly, because scholarly journals contain the following items which are NOT scholarly

• Book Reviews
• Editorials
• Letters to the editor
• Short news items

If you are unsure about using the information you've found, be sure to check with a librarian or your professor.

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