Types of Scholarly Articles:

• Reports on empirical research, which may be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed.
  • Some examples include case studies, observational research (laboratory or naturalistic), surveys, experiments testing the relationship between variables, etc.
• Theoretical articles that explore the history, philosophy, or other cultural expression of ideas relevant to an understanding of education.
• Review articles that critically assess works on a specific topic and which usually include explanations of conflicts in the literature, an analysis of the field and its significance, and possible issues that should be considered in future research.

Types of Non-scholarly Articles:

• Personal perspectives, which may take the form of an essay, an editorial, a blog, or other undocumented genre.
• Articles in newspapers and general interest magazines.
• Interviews (these may be primary sources, but they are not documented research).
• Practical advice or tips based on personal experience.
• Letters to the editor.

Scholarly writing or academic scholarship tends to come from people (like your professors) producing knowledge and engaging in conversation with fellow scholars in their field. This work may be published in academic journals, as a book, a chapter in an edited volume, or an online publication.

Learn to recognize scholarly sources with the following criteria:

• The author most likely will list their credentials such as their highest degree, university affiliation, and department.
• The writer uses highly specialized language, specific to a discipline or area of study.
• The work includes extensive citations, bibliographies, or footnotes, showing the author is aware of a body of scholarship relevant to the field.
• The content has been published by an academic institution or university press, the journal is specific to a field of study or discipline.
• The author's work is most likely "peer reviewed" or has gone through a rigorous editorial process by fellow experts in the field, which can take a long time. If you can't tell if something is peer reviewed, look up the journal or press website and see if you can find something out about the editorial process. Otherwise, you can always use a "peer review" filter in your databases search!
  • Recall too that not every scholarly articles is "peer reviewed", in that there are articles published in scholarly journals that did not go through the peer review process. For example, oftentimes book reviews or news commentaries can be found in scholarly journals, but they did not have to be reviewed by subject experts before publication.
  • If you've been asked by a professor to find scholarly articles to support your claims, or if you're on the hunt for scholarly sources for a research project, be sure you know what kind of scholarly source you want!

Remember- academic scholarship is only one type of information source. It isn't necessarily more credible or valid than other types of sources. Always be thinking critically about the author's methodologies and data analysis, and look for clear biases and political perspectives.

The basic rules for evaluating a source for quality are the same as the "5 W's" of journalism: Who, What, When, Where, and Why.

Who produced the document, image, video, sound file, etc. and what do you know about them, their credentials, and their motives?

What is the factual or emotional content of the source and does it reflect reality?

When was it produced and does that time frame alter its potential usefulness?

Where was it published and does that publisher evaluate sources before publishing them?  Does the place of publication reflect on the competence or impartiality of the source?  Is this a re-publication and, if so, where was it originally published?

Why was the item produced and published?  To educate?  To influence?  To sell something?  To promote the creator?