Evaluating Sources

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are scholarly/academic publications and how do they differ from other types of publications?
How can I distinguish scholarly/academic articles from the more news/information type of articles?
My professor wants me to find an “original” research article. How can I tell it is original as apposed to just a ‘think piece’ or a literature review?
My professor says that I cannot use sources from the Internet, but librarians are always pointing me to the computers to find articles. Why?
How do I learn to use an electronic index?

1. “What are scholarly/academic publications and how do they differ from other types of publications?”

Every periodical (a publication, like a magazine, that appears at regular intervals throughout the year) has a primary purpose or mission, and an intended audience. For the scholarly journals that you are expected to read in college, the purpose is to provide a means by which academic professionals from the same field of study can communicate with each other.* If you want to understand what a particular group of academicians (European historians, cognitive psychologists, evolutionary biologists, etc.) is talking about at any given point in time, it is essential to tap into one or several of its communication lines. Hence, you will want to read periodical literature relevant to the subject discipline you are studying. Scholarly journals feature the research and theoretical articles written by experts in the field who are communicating their findings and ideas to (usually) other members of the same field. Contrast, for example, scholarly journals with the news/information type of publication you commonly see on the newsstands. These later publications generally have a larger or broader reading audience. Journalists and other educated persons write articles for these publications that deal primarily with issues and events relevant to the public interest. These articles are written in the form of news stories, news analysis, and/or opinion pieces, and are useful for understanding important topics or current events, but they usually fall below the rigorous level of analysis found in the scholarly/academic type publications.

* The exception to the general rule of single disciplinary journals is the phenomenon of “interdisciplinary” journals, where scholars from different disciplines write articles on topics with overlapping significance. Examples of interdisciplinary journals at the Fred J. Taylor Library are: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History and Criminology.

2. “How can I distinguish scholarly/academic articles from the more news/information type of articles?”

In all of the scholarly publications, one can generally expect to find three types of articles: review articles, theoretical articles, and research articles. Critical reviews are usually analytical surveys of a literature on a given topic, or one scholar passing judgment—for better or worse—on the work of another. Book reviews are common examples of this later type of article. Authors will also sometimes draw on the ideas and research of their peers to make arguments or offer new ideas—to “theorize” about a topic—and this type of research is often based on what is called secondary materials. Secondary research is where the author uses other publications (books, articles, and theses) as source material to form the substance of her argument. In addition, this type of article can simply be intended to educate the reader on a concept (your textbooks are a case in point).

The most analytical type of article in academia is the research article. Research articles are often referred to as “primary” or “original” because, while they cite secondary source material early in the writing to develop the “theoretical framework” in which the research is conducted, the real source material is the raw data that the researchers are analyzing, and conclusions are drawn from that analysis that could not have been drawn from elsewhere. Authors of such articles range from historians who analyze manuscript and archival material to present their own unique perspectives on the past, to scientists who collect data from the “real world” and analyze it for patterns that were predicted by a theoretical construct. See FAQ #3 for examples.

3. “My professor wants me to find an “original” research article. How can I tell it is original as apposed to just a ‘think piece’ or a literature review?”

You do not have to, nor should you, read an entire article to determine whether or not it is original research. There are big clues in the abstract to a research article, or in the research article itself that indicate that the authors conducted an original study. The examples below are taken from the research literature in the field of nursing.

(a) Researchers always state explicitly, and usually early in the article, the purpose of the study. Also, a research question/problem or hypothesis may be presented that the study will address:

“This analysis addressed the following hypotheses: (1) Patients who received a CBT protocol that was matched to their BPP profile would, at the end of treatment, report (a) less pain intensity … and (2) the effect of profile-tailored CBT would be sustained over time.” [Dalton et al., 2004, p. 5]

“This study was undertaken to develop and validate a probability model for prolonged MV post-CABGS in older adult Medicare recipients (65 years of age).” [Bezanson, 2004, p. 46]

“The researchers hypothesized that the proportion of elders with consistent or improved fall-related outcomes would be significantly higher for those individuals participating in the ankle strengthening and walking program than for those elders who did not participate.” [Schoenfelder and Rubenstein, 2004, p. 22]

(b) Early in the article, the author(s) will illustrate how the study was designed—what methods were used and/or how data was collected and analyzed—or will include a definition of the variables that were used in the study:

“Data for this descriptive comparative study were obtained through retrospective chart review (N=103). Because 130 participants completed the program, this sample represents 79% of the accessible population obtained over the course of the project.” [Higley and Morin, 2004, pp. 34-35.]

“Depression, the dependent variable, was measured by using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS)…long form with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 87%...” [Loughlin, 2004, p. 13]

“Correlation coefficients were calculated between depression and age, cognitive impairment, communication on impairment, and pain. One way ANOVA was used to detect differences in mean depression scores among groups as defined previously.” [Kenefick, 2004, p. 26]

(c) If an article is a research study, invariably there will be “results” or “conclusions” toward the end, and usually following will be a “discussion” of those results or conclusions, and perhaps even “recommendations” to practitioners and/or a call for further research:

“The findings showed that 10.9% of the sample experienced physical abuse during the current pregnancy and 62% reported the intimate partner or former intimate partner to be the perpetrator.” [Dunn and Oths, 2004, p. 54]

“When abuse, mediators, and demographics were regressed on birth weight after control was used for obstetric covariates, only single marital status, low weight gain, and smoking contributed significantly to the variance in birth weight (Table 6).” [Kearney et al., 2004, p. 41]

“As anticipated, recruitment of participants was a problem … Part of the problem with recruitment was the general lack of understanding of postpartum depression and the mothers’ reluctance to admit they were depressed.” [Ugarriza, 2004, p. 45]

Works Cited

Bezanson, Judy L. (2004). Presurgical risk factors for late extubation in medicare recipients after cardiac surgery. Nursing Research 53(1), 46-58.

Dalton, Jo Ann et al. (2004). Tailoring cognitive-behavioral treatment for cancer pain. Pain Management Nursing 5 (1), 3-18.

Dunn, Linda L. and Oths, Kathryn S., (2004). Prenatal predictors of intimate partner abuse. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing 33(1), 54-63.

Higley, Anne Marie & Morin, Karen H. (2004). Behavioral responses of substance-exposed newborns: A retrospective study. Applied Nursing Research 17(1), 32-40.

Kearney, Margaret H. et al. (2004). Health behaviors as mediators for the effect of partner abuse on infant birth weight. Nursing Research 53(1), 36-45.

Kenefick, Amy L., (2004). Pain treatment and quality of life: Reducing depression and improving cognitive impairment. Journal of Gerontological Nursing 30(5), 22-29.

Loughlin, Agnes, (2004). Depression and social support: Effective treatments for homebound elderly adults. Journal of Gerontological Nursing 30(5), 11-15.

Schoenfelder, Deborah P. and Rubenstein, Linda M. (2004). An exercise program to improve fall-related outcomes in elderly nursing home residents. Applied Nursing Research 17(1), 21-31.

Ugarriza, Doris Noel. (2004). Group therapy and its barriers for women suffering from postpartum depression. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 18(2), 39-48.

4. “My professor says that I cannot use sources from the Internet, but librarians are always pointing me to the computers to find articles. Why?”

Learn to distinguish search engines (ex: Google or Yahoo) on the World Wide Web (WWW) from the subscription databases that the library provides over an Internet connection. Search engines perform a great service: they indiscriminately index the content of the WWW. There are some good sites on the Web. Some government agencies even provide online access to full text journals free of charge to the public. There is also a lot of junk, which is why your professors discourage using it for research. Since anyone can post a website, and search engines will find just about anything out there, your sources from the Web are not always going to be credible.

Fortunately you do not have to rely on the Web for scholarly journal articles. Over an internet connection, the Fred J. Taylor Library subscribes to over seventy databases that index the content of hundreds of news/information and scholarly journals. Just as you would use an index of a book to find pages that are relevant to your specific interest, electronic indexes (article databases) reference you to the articles in scholarly literature that best correspond to the terms you type into the search fields using your keyboard. The system will retrieve citations to where you can find the articles relevant to your specific interest or, in the case of “full-text” databases it may actually reference you to an electronic version of the article. You can display articles in electronic format on the screen and/or send them to a printer (or an e-mail account) to have a “hard copy” of the article just as if you had photocopied it. The full-text articles you retrieve from databases are, with the exception of periodicals that are only electronic, exactly the same articles that you find in the print version.

5. “How do I learn to use an electronic index?”

Ask a reference librarian to introduce you to the library’s electronic environment. Among other things, reference librarians are trained to help students make the most effective use of all the resources available to them, including electronic indexes. Just visit the reference desk located behind the circulation desk on the first floor of the library, and the reference librarian on duty will be happy to assist you. Remember, too, that each electronic index has a “help” link with many options that explain even the most elementary features.