Education

What is a scholarly article?

• Focus on discipline-specific research
• Use language reflecting the disciplines covered
• Provide the author's academic credentials
• Include citations and a list of references
• Are written for undergraduate/graduate students and faculty
• Not all scholarly journals are peer-reviewed

Peer-reviewed journals contain articles:

• That have been reviewed and critiqued by scholars in the author's field or speciality
• That have been evaluated for accuracy and the validity of the research methodology 
• That meet a discipline's expected standards of expertise

What isn’t a scholarly article?

• A popular magazine article written for the general public
• A book review, even if it is published in a scholarly journal
• A dissertation abstract, the brief summary of a graduate student’s thesis

Research Tips

• When starting a new search in a particular database, look for ways to limit your results. Many databases have check boxes labeled “Peer reviewed” or “Scholarly Journals” while others allow you to choose multiple document types (e.g., books, articles, etc.).
• If you choose not to limit the results of your search and you’re uncertain about a particular item in your list of results, you can click the title to view the full record and check the document type. 

Below are examples of keyword searching in databases.  Enter one keyword in each search box and use connectors (AND, OR, NOT) to focus your search.  The word effect often appears in the title or abstract of a research study article and can be used as a keyword.

• reading AND effect AND elementary school
• reading AND effect AND teenagers OR adolescents
• reading AND effect NOT phonetics

Newspaper article databases may be relevant for some subjects.