Your professor may have assigned a research project, but put some limitations on the types of sources you can use. You may have been told to use articles, but only scholarly articles. Articles can come from a variety of types of sources. How can you tell the difference? This guide helps you to distinguish articles from scholarly, trade, and popular sources.

In this activity from the Metaliteracy Badging site, you will learn about scholarly sources and the peer review process that they undergo. Scholarly sources are situated within a conversation among scholars, and you will be prompted to envisage how you might submit your own work for peer review. Contact Trudi Jacobson for details on how to take full advantage of the interactive features of this site.

Sometimes it is hard to tell if a journal fits into the scholarly category or not. Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory will let you know quickly whether the journal your article comes from is scholarly or not. Keep in mind that you’ll need to determine yourself if the actual article is scholarly or not.

Would you like to learn more about what scholarly articles are and how you can identify them? Let this tutorial guide you.