The credibility of your assignment rests on the credibility of the resources you have used in it to support your arguments. Before you include a resource in your assignment you will need to evaluate it to consider if it is appropriate for a university level assignment and relevant for your topic.
See the Evaluating Sources guide for more information on how to evaluate sources, and how to identify peer-reviewed and scholarly sources.
Test your skills in this interactive tutorial - Scholarly or Not?
This video explains how to recognise a scholarly book.
A journal (also known as periodical or serial) contains a number of scholarly articles written by different authors. Journals are published at regular intervals throughout the year e.g monthly, quarterly and are available in both print and online formats.
Scholarly articles, also called academic articles, are intended for other experts and scholars, rather than the general public.
It's important to note that scholarly journals also publish:
These are not considered to be scholarly articles. Make sure you look for some other clues before deciding that you're looking at a scholarly article.
This video shows how to identify a scholarly article
If you've been asked to find peer reviewed research, you need to know what a peer reviewed research article looks like.
An academic article, also called a scholarly article, is an article written by an expert in an academic or professional field. These articles are intended for other experts and scholars, rather than the general public. There are several ways to determine whether an article is scholarly. While none of these are hard-and-fast rules, they can be useful clues:
Re-used with permission thanks to Brooke Williams, Research & Instruction Services Librarian, Communication Studies & School of Journalism, Snell Library, Northeastern University.
Use the CRAAP checklist! Information from the web has to meet a higher standard before you use it in an assignment. Why? It is very easy to put information on the web. Information is not always verified or subject to any kind of peer review process.
This short video looks at evaluating web pages using the CRAAP test.
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