Workshops: 2. Find & Work with Scholarly Sources

Read or view the materials listed below and then take the quiz (you won't be able to answer the quiz questions without doing the readings/tutorials). After submitting the quiz, you'll see a Certificate of Completion that can be emailed or printed. The quiz is linked at the bottom of this page.

For any questions or issues with this content, please send an email with the details of your question to: librarian@sunyempire.edu

Questions to contemplate as you work through the materials below:

• What makes something scholarly?
• What is the peer-review process?
• What is the difference between scholarly and peer-reviewed and how do I locate them?
• What are some strategies to understand and integrate scholarly sources into your research writing?

Find and Use Scholarly Sources

1. What are scholarly sources? A publication type; journal articles (also called academic or peer-reviewed articles: example) and books (called 'scholarly monographs': example) written by experts whose target audience is other experts in that field.  They usually contain lots of discipline-specific jargon, in-text citations, and labeled sections like Introduction, Methodology, Conclusion, etc. Many articles in the library are scholarly, which means they are often very narrow in scope, covering just a small aspect of typical student assignment topics. This means you will likely not find scholarly articles that neatly summarize your broad topic and may instead need to access multiple articles to get a fuller picture of your topic. Most scholarly articles can be hard to read and understand; this is something all students experience (it gets easier the more you do it).

2. What is a peer-reviewed article? Most scholarly articles are peer-reviewed. The minor difference is that peer-review is a journal publishing process, while scholarly refers to the content and audience; i.e., any source written by and for experts in a field of study. Before being published in a journal with a peer-review process (not all journals use a peer-review process), submitted articles are sent out to other experts in the field to read and make comments and suggestions for revision. The process often takes many months to complete but ensures a higher level of quality and reliability. This is why your instructors assign such readings and often want you to use them as sources in your own academic writing. However, keep in mind that just because a source you encounter is scholarly, peer-reviewed or academic does not mean that it is automatically free of error, or author or structural biases.

3. How do I find scholarly/peer-reviewed journal articles? The Online Library's OneSearch (the search box in the upper left of the library home page) has a limit option, on the left side of the results page after you do a search, for "in Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed journals only." In addition, the OneSearch includes a "Peer-Reviewed" tag under relevant results to help you identify such articles. Many of the library's discipline-specific databases contain a similar limit option.

4. How can I effectively read and understand scholarly sources?
   1. Scan key sections of the article first: the abstract (a brief summary of the article), introduction, and conclusion. These sections will contain the key points and arguments of the article. You can then read the full article if needed.
   2. A good notetaking habit is the key to understanding any scholarly source. Good notetaking includes more than just highlighting text. Instead, or in addition, write down notes in your own words summarizing key passages or ideas that could be useful to you for writing a paper or understanding how the content fits into your understanding of the topic. This can be done in the margins of a printout or on a separate piece of paper or Word document (make sure you include the citation info of the article it goes with!).
   3. Advanced researchers (for longer research papers or literature reviews) and graduate students might also want to try using a synthesis matrix, which is one of the most effective ways to organize and extract useful information out of multiple scholarly sources.
   4. What about the use of generative artificial intelligence (like ChatGPT)? While it's ok to use generative AI tools to help identify, summarize or get a better understanding of scholarly sources, keep in mind that these A.I. tools have significant shortcomings (biases and hallucinations) and should never substitute for doing your own coursework. Your professors (and the University's Academic Honesty policy) expect your coursework to be your own and to reflect your own voice and ideas. For a fuller discussion see: Ethical and Social Responsibility Considerations of Gen AI. Also, any use of generative AI requires proper documentation and citation. If you are unsure if AI use is appropriate, please consult with your instructor. You should be prepared to explain the purpose of your intended use and receive permission.

A quick word on Primary and Secondary sources

You will sometimes hear your professors describe or ask you to use primary or secondary sources; what does this mean? What is the difference? These terms refer to the perspective of the authors in relation to their topic. A primary source is usually written at the time of a historical event or by a direct observer of that event or experiment. These kinds of sources can take many forms, including memoirs, interviews, diaries, speeches, works of art, recordings, field notes, historical newspapers, or experiment data. A secondary source is generally written after an event, often using primary sources to analyze them or use as evidence for further discussion (i.e., they cite primary sources). Most journal articles and books are secondary sources.

• Primary: direct observation - memoirs, interviews, diaries, speeches, works of art, recordings, field notes, historical newspapers, or experiment data
• Secondary: later analysis, interpretation or use of primary sources - most articles and books

For hands-on practice, try this:

1. Try to find some recent scholarly journal articles in the library on the following topic: deforestation in the Amazon 
   • Take notice of the kinds of results you see. Are they more narrow, more broad, or fit the topic perfectly?
2. Go into the full-text of a scholarly result - what organizational and content details stick out to you?
   • Try reading the abstract, introduction and conclusion of that article AND write down some notes on what the article is about in your own words.

If you didn't explore these links in the content above, you should do so now.

Work through the readings and tutorials above, and take this quiz (you won't be able to answer the questions without doing so):

• Quiz for Library Workshop 2: Find and Work with Scholarly Sources (after successful completion, you'll see a Certification of Completion noting your name and grade, which can be emailed, printed or used to take a picture with your phone if you need to or wish to share with an instructor)
• [Note that without carefully reviewing the readings and video tutorials you will probably not be able to answer many of the questions]