assignment
| Source type | What is it? | Examples | Best used for |
| Scholarly | A source written by scholars or academics in a field. The purpose of many scholarly sources is to report on original research or experimentation in order to make such information available to the rest of the scholarly community. The audience for scholarly sources is other scholars or experts in a field. Scholarly sources include references and usually use language that is technical or at a high reading level. *Note: Different databases may define “scholarly” in slightly different ways, and thus a source that is considered “scholarly” in one database may not be considered “scholarly” in another database. The final decision about the appropriateness of a given source for a particular assignment is left to the instructor. | Scholarly Journals
Scholarly Books (published by a university press or other high-quality publisher)
| Journal articles:
Books:
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| Peer Reviewed | A publication that has gone through an official editorial process that involves review and approval by the author’s peers (experts in the same subject area). Many (but not all) scholarly publications are peer reviewed. *Note: even though a journal is peer reviewed, some types of articles within that journal may not be peer reviewed. These might include editorials or book reviews. **Note: some publications (such as some trade journals) can be peer reviewed but not scholarly. This is not common. | See “Scholarly Journals” above Books go through a different editorial process and are not usually considered to be “peer reviewed”. However, they can still be excellent scholarly sources. | See above |
