Research Process

Evaluating Sources

Evaluating your sources is a critical part of the research process. It's important to make sure the sources you use are reliable and credible.  

Peer-Review, Scholarly, and Popular

Peer-Review (Refereed): The process an article may go through prior to being published. Peer-review involves multiple experts in a particular field reading an article, making comments and suggestions, and sending back to the author for revision. Not all articles are peer-reviewed.

Scholarly: An article whose intended audience is experts in their field and is written by experts. While most scholarly publications are peer-reviewed, they are not always. However, if an article is peer-reviewed, it is typically scholarly.

Popular: Articles that are published without going through the peer-review process. They are typically written for the general public. Examples of resources that offer popular articles include The New York Times, Time, and People. Popular articles may be edited, but this is not the same as peer-review.

This page was created by Magen Nosworthy (Fall 2018 ENGL 489)