During your time in college, you may have heard talk about using scholarly
sources in your assignments.
And if you havent, chances are that you will.
Lets look at what exactly a scholarly source is,
and how it differs from a popular source.
Scholarly sources come in different forms, but for the most part,
you’ll see them as books and peer-reviewed articles.
A peer-reviewed article is a short write-up of a piece of research,
theory, or other scholarly activity that has been checked for quality
by an editor who is knowledgeable in the subject of the article prior to publication.
Peer-reviewed articles may also be called juried articles,
refereed articles, or simply scholarly articles.
Unfortunately, its not always easy to tell if something is a scholarly source right away.
Here are some key characteristics you can use to tell a scholarly source
(the kind you should be using for your assignments)
from a popular source
(the kind you should beware of).
Popular sources are normally written by journalists or other non-specialists,
people whose main job is to summarize ideas or events in an easily-understandable format.
On the other hand, scholarly sources are written by researchers,
theorists, and other specialists—people who have an in-depth knowledge of the subject.
They tend to have a lot of letters after their names.
Popular sources are written for a broad, general audience.
Theyre intentionally written to be understood by as wide a variety of people as possible.
Think of it this way:
Twilight doesnt spend much time on the intricacies of cellular metabolism in vampires,
and JK Rowling tells us little about parliamentary procedure during faculty meetings at Hogwarts.
Scholarly sources are all about that kind of detail.
Theyre written by specialists for specialists.
This means a narrower, more focused audience.
Popular sources usually need to compete for attention.
This means a colorful, flashy presentation, usually with lots of pictures and graphics—not
to mention advertisements.
Scholarly sources, in contrast, are, well…dull.
They normally have lots of dense, black-and-white text.
And the images that do make their way in are likely to be charts and graphs.
If there are advertisements, theyre minimal.
And they’re usually for dull things like textbooks and food for lab rats.
Popular sources tend to be used for entertainment, or to stay informed with current events.
Youll also find a lot of opinion pieces in popular sources.
Conversely, objectivity is a major goal of scholarly sources.
Theyll also use a lot of jargon specific to their field of study,
and they tend to report research, rather than opinion.
Think about a magazine or newspaper you’ve read,
either online or on paper.
Did you ever see something that looked like this at the end of an article?
Probably not.
While scholarly sources are virtually required to have long lists of supporting references
and complete citations, popular writers don’t usually list the sources they consulted,
and if they do, it’s normally in an indirect way.
So theres an overview of the difference between scholarly and popular sources.
Its important to remember that the distinction isn’t always black-and-white.
Its more of a continuum from one end to the other.
For example, a researcher might write a magazine article summarizing her latest experiment
for a lay audience.
Or a journalist might produce a book that deals with a topic in depth
and is backed up by a formidable references section.
In the end, you need to use these distinctions as guidelines.
What makes a good source is going to vary based on your goals and the requirements for
your assignment.
Developing your own ability to evaluate sources is an important part of information literacy.
And when in doubt, you can always ask a librarian.
Its what we’re here for.