What are Scholarly Sources?

Every scholarly source is your opportunity to back up your words with other research and facts. Without sources, conducting quality research and covering a topic is impossible. Through such references, you also increase the credibility of your work in the eyes of the audience and the instructor. This is the only way to prove that your thoughts and conclusions are based on clear indicators or statistics. This is why citing a quality scholar source will allow you to maximize the credibility of your information and improve the quality of your work.

What Is a Scholarly Source?

First, scholarly sources are articles, publications, book pages, or even videos from which you take information for your research. The main rule is that an expert should write the cited material. This way, you will get the right information and use it. Such data should often be based on theories, analysis, practical experiences, statistics gathering, or other research. You will also be able to use:

• magazines and web journals;
• publications of well-known media or academic publications;
• individual websites or pages;
• reports from conferences held;
• statistical studies;
• pictures with infographics or videos with experts.

These are all excellent scholarly sources examples that every student should use to accomplish their goals. The main thing to realize is that not all pages and books can be called reliable sources.

Key Characteristics of Scholarly Sources

When asking what is a scholarly source, it should be understood that the sources can also be popular. Unlike the former, they may not be written by experts or specialists. They all differ because they are intended for the general public, use simpler language, and can often be subjective. They often lack the basics of academic analysis or writing, there is no proper formatting, and the information may not be verified. This is why you should conduct a rigorous peer review stage of sources that are suitable for you.

Only then will you be able to utilize accurate scholarly data that has been cross-checked before. An excellent example of a scholarly source will have several distinguishing features that will help you determine how much you can trust the chosen information as quickly as possible. Here are a few important characteristics:

• accuracy. The information used must be as accurate and grammatically correct as possible. More often than not, such sources include additional references that are also sources. You will be able to double-check the data several times before finally deciding to use it;
• author. A good scholarly resource cannot be obtained out of thin air; a certain writer must be assigned to it. You can check the author’s qualifications and their early or future scholarly works. This helps in determining whether the scholarly resource is expertly written and can be trusted;
• bias. Using only unbiased information that does not lean towards one side of the conflict is crucial. Scientific sources are always based on facts, arguments, and statistics, not opinions and subjective evaluation. Authors should appeal to readers’ logic, not their emotions. Therefore, typical publications in social networks cannot be called reliable, much less scientific, sources;
• target audience. Any scholars resource focuses on certain people who will become readers. Most often, these are scientists, and you will not have any problems with this. More often than not, this is why it is extremely difficult to read scientific sources without training because the author counts on the understanding of other employees of the field and experts. Therefore, such articles are often overly technical and difficult for ordinary people to understand;
• terms. It is better not to try to use scholar resources that were created and published more than five years ago. You should focus on up-to-date information and work only with those data that have been made public conventionally recently. This does not apply to some specific topics, in which books written more than a thousand years ago may serve as sources. At the same time, for common topics, diplomas, or term papers, it is usually not customary to use publications that are too old;
• publisher. It is important to pay attention to the owners of scholarly resources on whose site the article or scientific material was published. Thanks to this, you can distinguish much more effectively between current materials and those that are too outdated. Also, pay attention to who exactly did it because, most often, universities, professional clubs or associations, and various commercial publications act as publishers.
• purpose. You should also look at what exactly the purpose of the research was. This will, among other things, help you detect materials that may be biased early on. It is better to look at studies about milk from biolabs or an association of livestock scientists rather than from a milk company. Subjectivity can follow you anywhere, so check and double-check information several times.

The final point is that scholar resource should be peer-reviewed. As a rule, many authors can leave their notes and opinions about this or that information that has appeared in the scholarly information field. It is necessary to rely on such reviews to avoid accidentally using unreliable data. It is also important to note that it is not always possible for a source to be peer-reviewed. Even without reviews, such information can be considered scientific, but you should use it as carefully as possible. Try to check the data yourself and create your review of an article, book, or website excerpt.

Types of Scholarly Sources

Discussing the question of what are considered scholarly sources, one can conclude that many sources can be used in one’s scholarly work. The most common are journals, books, presentations, videos, photographs, various scholarly works and publications, and websites. You will be able to use all these materials to improve the objectivity of the presentation of information in your research papers.

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Why Scholarly Sources Are Important for Research

First, the definition of scholarly source says that the information will be used in your research or other work, meaning you cannot use unreliable data. Your entire argumentation, thesis, and structure of the paper will be essentially based on the data obtained from the sources and your thoughts. Therefore, you need to ensure that the information submitted is as safe as possible, and you should not make a mistake in choosing the right papers.

Here are three important features that make scholarly sources important:

• credibility. With sources, you will significantly increase the credibility of your scholarly work with other scholars and faculty;
• authority. Citing experts allows you to increase the authority of your scholarly work, so scholars never ignore this opportunity;
• impartiality. With sources, you can show that it is not your opinion but a truly in-depth study.

Now, you know how to find a scholarly source and will be able to identify a suitable book, article, or reference at a glance. Remember that it is your research you must do in the first place. Otherwise, gaining the trust of academics and other researchers will be extremely difficult.

Identifying and Accessing Scholarly Sources for Your Work

Since the difference between popular and scholarly sources is known, you can start searching for suitable materials for your research paper. Try to use the Internet, where there are special tools for this purpose. For example, Google Scholar is popular, which allows you to see the most correct and relevant articles and materials. You can also specify the specific name of the author to get scientific papers from the selected scientist.

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