Research Guides: Social Work Research Guide: Scholarly Articles

About Scholarly Articles

What are Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Articles?

You will often be asked to use scholarly, peer-reviewed, or academic articles in your research. These types of articles are written by experts who are working in different fields, including many of the professors you are taking classes from at Cal Poly Humboldt. They often present original research or analysis and are reviewed by other experts in the field ("peer review") before they are published in scholarly journals.

How do these types of articles compare to articles from more popular sources?

	Popular magazines	Scholarly Journals
Audience	General public; use language understood by the average reader	For students, scholars, researchers; use specialized language of a discipline
Content	News items, feature stories, editorials and opinion pieces	Original research, theory; may include an abstract
Appearance	Visual, lots of advertising, color, photos, short articles with no bibliographies or references	Little or no advertising, lengthy articles, charts and tables, bibliographies & references
Authors	May or may not be named, frequently a staff writer, not a subject expert	Authors are specialists, articles are signed, credentials such as degrees and university affiliation are given.
Purpose	News, general information or entertainment, opinion	To disseminate research findings, publicize current topics in the field and professional issue

The Peer-Review Process

The video below is a great introduction to what makes scholarly, peer-reviewed articles unique and how you can identify them.

How do I read these kinds of articles?

How Do I Read These Kinds of Articles?

There are certain techniques you can use for reading these types of articles. It's important to first understand some of their major attributes. Although articles in different disciplines may look different, the video below can help you become familiar with some of the things you might see.

Evaluating Articles

Are All Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Articles Good for My Research?

Peer-reviewed articles have already been published, and have gone through a review and editing process (unlike web sites or popular articles). But it is still a good idea to evaluate them. Some scholarly journals are of higher quality than others. Additionally, not every scholarly article you find on your topic will be a good source for the research you are doing.

When evaluating sources, think about...

Source - Look for articles from scholarly journals, written by experts in the subject. There will be references that can lead you to additional books and articles on the topic. In some databases, you can limit your search by type of article -- a research article, an editorial, a review, or a clinical trial.
Length - The length of the article, noted in the citation, can be a good clue as to whether the article will be useful for research.
Authority - Use authoritative sources in your research. Use articles written by experts in the subject area, and who are affiliated with an academic institution.
Date – research in many subjects requires the most current information available. Is the article sufficiently up-to-date for your purpose?
Audience - For what type of reader is the author writing? If an article is written for other professionals, it will use terms and language special to the subject area.
Usefulness - Is the article relevant to your research topic?