WHAT IS A SCHOLARLY SOURCE?

At the library research session you will be given a little time to look for scholarly sources. The research librarian will give you tips for finding sources that are scholarly and academically credited. However, once you actually find the source, there are two fairly easy ways for determining whether or not the source is scholarly. Your source should meet BOTH criteria.

1)The article should be written by a scholar; i.e. someone affiliated with an academic institution as a student, researcher, or professor.

Why? The kind of resources we want you to use will ideally be written for the sole purpose of academic enrichment, meaning they are not sponsored by a corporation, which will most likely have its own interests at heart rather than academic results. Scholars are trained to do intense, thorough, reliable research—most business professionals are not. Therefore, information provided by a ‘professional,’ often on behalf of her/his company, is often biased or incomplete

2)The article should use proper research methods (i.e. include a list of references or works cited) OR it should document a controlled, properly conducted experiment.

Why isn’t it enough that the article is written by a scholar? Scholars have been known to write editorial, promotional, or creative pieces as well as academic articles. For example, I am a scholar. I could write an editorial about foreign policy in the Boston Globe. It might be a well written, convincing piece, but if I’ve cited no sources, and thus offered no support other than heartfelt emotional appeals and logic, my editorial is not a reliable research source. Remember that you are required to use research to support your arguments in this paper—shouldn’t you require the same of your sources?

Keep in mind:

You must have a minimum of five of these scholarly sources

Once you reach this minimum, you can use any other reputable sources you like. They not need be scholarly, as long as they are respected in the field. (New York Times = respected; some guy blogging in his basement = not respected) Many of you will need older pieces for background, company publications, newspaper articles, etc.—it’s fine to use these, as long as you realize that they will not count as one of your five scholarly sources.