Scholarly sources are written by people who are experts in their field. These sources are often referred to as "peer reviewed," which means that other scholars in the author's field critically assess a draft of the article.
Scholarly sources include articles published in academic journals and books published by an academic press.
- Characteristics of scholarly sources include original research or studies in a discipline, a specific subject focus, and the audience is scholars and researchers.
- Titles of academic journals often include the word "Journal" or "Research" or "Review". The name of an academic press usually includes the word "University."
Scholarly articles may include some or all of these components
- Abstract or summary paragraph
- Methods
- Literature review
- Results
- Conclusion
- Discipline specific terms/vocabulary/jargon
- Citations in footnotes and/or bibliographies/reference lists
- Diagrams, graphs, charts and/or tables
- No or minimal advertising
If you are unsure if a source is scholarly, use the link below to learn more or ask me or another librarian.