Answered By: Research Librarian Last Updated: Jan 10, 2023 Views: 174
To learn how to identify if a source is scholar or not you need to learn the difference between scholarly and popular sources. The table below explains this.
Scholarly sources | Popular Sources |
---|---|
Longer articles from discipline-specific journals | Shorter articles from newspapers or magazines |
Provide the author's qualifications or credentials | Are written by journalists or professional writers |
Contains technical or discipline-specific language | Contains language easily understood by the general public |
Includes full citations for sources | Rarely gives full citations for sources |
Typically is not colorful and does not include advertisements | Is colorful and contains many advertisements |
Peer reviewed sources contain the same characteristics as scholarly sources, BUT these articles also undergo a review and evaluation by a group of discipline specialists, before they are accepted for publication.
Some databases provide the option to limit your search to return only scholarly, peer-reviewed results. However, the database may not make a distinction between which articles are scholarly and which are peer-reviewed. To determine if an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal, you may need to go to the publications website; it should indicate if the articles published are peer reviewed.
Most often books are not considered peer review, since they go through a different publication process than journal articles.
For additional information check out the LibGuide Distinguish Scholarly vs. Popular Sources.