How To Read a Scholarly Article
This PDF gives a quick breakdown on how to read a scholarly article to assess if it might be useful for your research.
Now that you’ve found sources, you’ll need to evaluate them before committing to them, but this doesn’t have to be time consuming. Just ask yourself two questions: Is this source trustworthy? And is this source suitable? Not every suitable source is trustworthy, and not every trustworthy source is suitable.
Determining Suitability
Consider the following: will this source help me answer the research questions that I am posing in my project? Will it help me learn as much as I can about my topic? Will it help me write an interesting, convincing essay for my readers?
Determining Trustworthiness (or Credibility)
Trustworthiness of sources may not be as easy to determine, especially if you’re in a hurry, aren’t paying attention, or haven’t checked your own biases at the door. Pay attention to things like:
This infographic is from the property of Prince George Community College. The guide also discusses nesting and the use of quotation marks.
Sources are artifacts of information you'll use as evidence to support whatever you're writing about. Good researchers will consult and use a variety of sources - primary, secondary, popular, and scholarly sources. The following videos explain more about the most common types.
You can preform a Google Scholar search directly from this LibGuide. Feel free to check out the Google Scholar Handout for additional information on making the most of a Google Scholar search.