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Recognizing Scholarly Articles and Scholarly Research Articles

If you are looking at a research article or an empirical article, the article will most likely also have a Methods or Methodology section.

Examples of items you might find that are NOT JOURNAL ARTICLES

All of these are credible sources and can be useful, however these are not journal articles. Use these only if your instructor is allowing sources beyond journal articles for your assignment. When searching in ERIC or PsycINFO, you can use the Source Type limiter on the results page to filter out some of these.

Examples of Articles often found in Scholarly Journals that are NOT RESEARCH ARTICLES

These are examples of articles that can be found in peer reviewed journals, but these are not research articles. Some of these types of articles might not go through peer review, even if they are in a peer reviewed journal.

If you use a check box for peer review in Esearch or a library database, take that with a "grain of salt." Those check boxes generally restrict results to all items found in journals that use peer review. Since many scholarly journals publish both peer reviewed articles and some types of articles that are not peer reviewed, using that check box does not guarantee that an item is peer reviewed.

If you are required to use peer reviewed research articles, look for the elements described in the top box above and try to avoid articles like the examples linked below.

Test Your Skills 1

Only one of these is a scholarly research article. You can click on the Option link to scan the full document for clues.

Choose the scholarly research article:
Option 1: 10 votes (14.29%)
Option 2: 55 votes (78.57%)
Option 3: 5 votes (7.14%)
Total Votes: 70

Can you identify the type of document or article for the other two choices?

Test Your Skills 2

Only one of these is a scholarly research article. You can click on the Option link to scan the full document for clues.

Choose the scholarly research article:
Option A: 17 votes (28.81%)
Option B: 10 votes (16.95%)
Option C: 32 votes (54.24%)
Total Votes: 59

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Education Librarian

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Kate Pittsley-Sousa
Contact:
kate.pittsley@emich.edu
Subjects: Education