Look carefully at several aspects of your source, whether it's a book, article, or website, to determine how scholarly the source is. For example:
- Who is the author, and what are the author's credentials? An author with a Ph.D. in the subject is the most scholarly.
- What's the vocabulary like? Is it very basic, is it understandable by high school or college students, or is it the specialized vocabulary used in a specific subject?
- Are there references (list of works cited)? Are the references from scholarly sources?
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