What is a Scholarly Article?

Scholarly journals are publications that come out monthly or quarterly for researchers to publish their original research, including theoretical discussions and reviews.

Scholarly journals are typically peer-reviewed journals. Peer review indicates that similarly qualified people verify the content of the article. This means, scholarly articles are often published months after an event.

Information does not stay the same. It evolves over time. 

Information evolves overtime and changes in format, content, and quality. When choosing information, consider the flow of information. Are you selecting the best resource available?

How to evaluate the most common types of articles.

When doing research, you will come across three main types of articles, Scholarly, Trade, and Popular. There is a time and place for each type of article. 

1. Scholarly: Highly reliable, use freely. Written by scholars for scholars
2. Trade: Use with caution, written by people in the industry for people in the industry 
3. Popular: Avoid, authority and reliability hard to determine. 

If you are not sure if an article is peer-reviewed or scholarly, you can still evaluate the information. It can still be credible even if not peer-reviewed. 

• Access: is it readily available?
• Authorship: is the person writing qualified? 
• Context: Does it specifically address your research needs?
• Date: Is it current or still relevant? 
• Purpose: Why was this information created?
• Source: Can you find a bibliography

Find Scholarly Articles in Library Search 

1. Select Articles

2. Enter key words

3. Select Peer-reviewed Journals on the left

4. Look for the Purple Peer Reviewed Icon