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ANTC12: Culture and Society in Contemporary South Asia

Winter 2024 - Professor Waqas Butt

What is a Scholarly Source?

When working on research assignments, you will often be required to use scholarly sources as references to support your work. Scholarly sources are publications written by subject experts within a specific field of study and they are used to develop conversations among scholars. These sources are an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the latest research on a topic and can be used to provide evidence to support your own research.

Comparing Sources: Scholarly vs. Non-Scholarly Sources

Not sure if the source you've found in scholarly? Use these seven criteria to evaluate it!

  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.