ENGL 1300 Research Guide

What Type of Article Do I Need?

For this assignment you will need to locate a Peer Reviewed or Scholarly article. That means you will need to locate an article that has been reviewed by other experts or scholars in the field who judge the article for quality. Use a library database to start your search. For additional information on searching for peer reviewed articles check out the FAQ guide link below.

Library FAQ Guide to Peer Review

The Library FAQ guide provides search tips, using Keywords, and information on expanding and narrowing your search.

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly journals may also be referred to as academic, peer-reviewed, or refereed journals.

Peer Reviewed or Refereed journals submit potential articles to multiple scholars and academic experts within the field for review prior to publication. These experts must agree that the article represents a contribution to the combined knowledge on the subject and that the research was properly conducted prior to the article being accepted for publication.
 

What to look for:

• Scholarly journal articles often have an abstract, a descriptive summary of the article contents, before the main text of the article.
• Scholarly journals always cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies. These bibliographies are generally lengthy and cite other scholarly writings.
• The language of scholarly journals is that of the discipline covered. It assumes some technical background on the part of the reader. Meaning the author is probably going to use some technical jargon from their field of expertise.
• The main purpose of a scholarly journal is to report on original research or experimentation in order to make such information available to the rest of the scholarly world.

Why Use a Library Database Instead of Google for Research?

It is important to understand that the information found in databases such as Academic Search Complete or JSTOR is NOT the same as the information found on the Web. The information in databases is targeted and accurate articles come from authoritative sources that takes effort and time to compile. Because of the time and effort spent developing these resources databases cost money, which the library pays to access. Because the Web is free and anyone can post information, there is little to no organization or oversight involved in Web information resources and most information is not evaluated for accuracy.

“Google VS Research Database.” Research Basics, https://salve.libguides.com/researchguide/finding-articles. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.