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Research Guides

WRR103: Writing Essays

What kind of information and research do you need?

Day of ...  Week of ... Week after ... Months after ... Year after & later
  • Social Media
  • TV News
  • Web-based News
  • Newspapers
  • Web-based News
  • Popular Magazines
  • Some Trade / Industry Magazines
  • Academic and scholarly journals
  • Some Trade Magazines
  • Books
  • Government Reports

Think about the different types of information these sources 

  • Immediate response
  • First person accounts
  • Commentary from experts, organizations, or general public
  • In-depth research (overview or very specific aspects)
  • Brief overview of a topic 
  • Images, Figures or Tables of Data

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources (video)

Popular (also called non-scholarly) sources inform and entertain the public or allow practitioners to share industry, practice, and production information  Examples: Newspapers, magazines, trade journals, popular books.

Scholarly (also called academic) sources disseminate research and academic discussion among professionals within disciplines; they are intended for university-level study and research, and are preferred when writing university-level essays.  Examples: Journals and books; see the chart below.

Adapted from the CQ University Library.

Comparing Scholarly vs. Non-Scholarly Sources (table)

Seven criteria for evaluating sources.

Scholarly/Academic Source Non-scholarly/Popular Source
Purpose
  • To share with other scholars the results of primary research & experiments.
  • To entertain or inform in a broad, general sense.
Author
  • A respected scholar or researcher in the field; an expert in the topic; names are always noted.
  • A journalist or feature writer; names are not always noted.
Publisher
  • A university press; a professional association or known (independent) scholarly publisher.
  • A commercial publisher; self-published.
Audience
  • Scholars or researchers in the field or those interested in the topic at a research level; university students.
  • General public.
Content
  • Formal presentation of scholarly work in a standard style; often an abstract at the beginning of the article. Articles may have section headings, such as literature review, methodology, results, discussion/further study.
  • Often presented in story format, with anecdotes from other people.
Style
  • Language is formal and technical; usually contains discipline-specific jargon.
  • Language is casual (high school reading level or lower). Few, if any, technical terms are used (and if they are, they are usually defined.)
References
  • Standard element; reference are always cited and expected; can also be called "works cited," or "bibliographies;" text often contains footnotes.
  • Very uncommon; text may contain vague referrals to "a study published at..." or "researchers found that..." with no other details about that information.

 

Adapted from the Valparaiso University Library.

What Is Grey Literature?

Grey Literature is any literature that has not been published through traditional means. It is often excluded from large databases and other mainstream sources. Grey literature can also mean literature that is hard to find or has inconsistent or missing bibliographic information. 

Search grey literature to:

  • avoid bias
  • ensure that the review is as thorough as possible
  • find sources for negative results or brand new evidence
  • discover more references to published literature that your database search might have missed

CADTH's "Grey Matters" tool provides a list of organizations that produce grey literature. As well, the CRD guide and Chapter 6 of the Cochrane Handbook mentioned earlier in this guide include links to a number of grey literature sources.

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