COLT/UGST 109 - In Search of Belonging: Storytelling and Community (Marlan)

Evaluating sources is an important step of the research process. The evidence you choose to use for your research should accurately support what you are trying to argue and it should lend credibility to your work. If you cherry pick your sources, or find quotes that "kind of" fit in your paper, that can have the opposite effect.

Check out this short video from Western University on how to read a scholarly article.

(Click to Enlarge the Image)

Long description of "Evaluating Information" for web accessibility

Thanks to IUPUI University Library for allowing reuse of this graphic under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License.

How can I be sure my journal article is scholarly?

Many databases offer the option to search for "peer-reviewed" journal articles - those are academic articles reviewed by the authors' peers for accuracy during the editing and publishing process.

If you are using a database that does not have this filter option, or if you find an article citation somewhere else, you can check if the article was published in a "peer-reviewed" journal or magazine by using Ulrichsweb.

1. Search for your journal or magazine by title
2. Look for a little black and white striped referee jersey icon next to its name  
3. The Content Type will say "Academic/Scholarly"