The authors of books and scholarly journal articles are clearly identified. That may not be true of magazines, newspapers, and Web pages. If the author is unknown, then the credibility of your information source becomes even more important.
Is the author qualified to write on this topic?
Scholarly journals are more authoritative for your academic research purposes than popular magazines. The chart below explains why.
| Scholarly
Journals |
Popular
Magazines |
|
| Author | Scholars in the field | Reporters or staff writers |
| Audience | Scholars and Students | General Public |
| Citing of Sources | Yes | Not generally |
| Peer Reviewed/ Refereed | Yes | No |
| Purpose | Report on original research | Provide general information, entertain |
| Publisher | Academic or professional organization | Commercial |
Some commercial online databases provide an option to limit search results to only peer-reviewed articles. While this option targets scholarly information sources, it significantly limits search results.
*Peer-review is a system through which professionals in the same area as the researcher review his or her work to ensure its quality before the work is published.
Why Evaluate Information Resources? | What are the Criteria? | Authority | Objectivity | Reliability | Timeliness | Coverage
Last updated: Thursday, 24-Jun-2004 16:50:55 EDT