how can i tell if something is a scholarly article?

Question

don't know if any of you all are familiar with the search database called EBSCO (or Academic Search Premier)...but was wondering if every article that these search engines find, are they scholarly articles? Like if I open one up, sometimes it says Document type: Article. So does that mean that it is a scholarly article, or is it just a plain article?? thanks!

Answer 1

Not all articles from EBSCO or other subscription-based databases are automatically going to be scholarly; however, they are more like to return authoritative and high quality content.

To be defined as a scholarly article, a journal must employ a rigorous peer review process for all the articles they select. For example, articles from newspapers and magazines are not considered scholarly.

Article authority can be determined through transparency of its source. Transparency is when the author or source of the information is clearly defined. Knowing the source is relevant to determining how authoritative the source is (how reputable is the source? are they an expert? what biases might the source have?).

Libraries pay lots of money to provide their community with access to high quality published material (that are not freely available through the web) and are also more likely to return a highly level (quality and relevance) of search results for students and researchers.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Answer 2

sophisticated situation. research at a search engine. that might help!