Overview
How Scholarly?
Sources of information can range from being popular to scholarly. Each source will go somewhere on this scale:
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| Popular Sources that are not scholarly, but can still be credible, include popular periodicals such as magazines and newspapers |
Most Scholarly Scholarly sources typically include academic journal articles. |
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Things to Consider:
.Where on the scholarly scale does your source fall?
To make your determination, here are six things to consider:
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Your Research Needs
There are many sources of information -- websites, books, magazines, journals, newspapers, friends -- and which sources you use depends on your needs.
For your college research needs, your sources need to be reliable and credible. Credible and reliable sources can be either more scholarly or more popular:
Sources that are more scholarly, such as academic journal articles, are considered more scholarly due to the expertise of the authors, advanced vocabulary and concepts, and the rigorous review and editing process.
Sources that are more popular, such as magazine and newspaper articles, can also be reliable and appropriate, though you may find more opinions there. They also do not discuss a topic in as much depth as a more scholarly source would.