Skip to Main Content
UIS Library Logo

Research Essentials

This guide covers the fundamentals of college research: identifying source types, finding sources using library resources, and evaluating the credibility of sources.

Source Types

  • Scholarly sources, such as articles in academic journals, are written for an audience of researchers who have specialized knowledge in the subject area. As a college student, this includes you!
    • Academic journals are publications that publish scholarly articles about a specific scholarly discipline. They publish both research articles as well as book reviews of books in that discipline, as well as sometimes opinion pieces.
    • Some scholarly sources are peer reviewed, which means that other experts in the field reviewed it before it was published. Not everything published in a peer reviewed journal has been peer reviewed, however. "Peer reviewed" journals also publish book reviews and editorials. If you're not sure whether a source counts as peer reviewed, contact your instructor or a librarian!
  • Popular sources are written for a general audience. (“Popular” in this context doesn’t refer to how well-known it is.) Magazine and newspaper articles, posts on social media, and most books are popular sources.
  • The meaning of the terms primary and secondary depends on the discipline. Generally, in STEM, scholarly articles are primary sources, but in the humanities, scholarly articles are considered secondary and original historical documents are primary.

Comparing Scholarly and Popular Sources

Take a moment to review this article. How can we identify it as a scholarly source?

  • The author's name and credentials are listed, and he has a PhD in a relevant field
  • It was published in a scholarly journal by a university press
  • It's written with more technical language
  • There are lots of citations 
  • It was written by an expert in the field for other experts in the field, and contains the results of original research

Take a moment to review this article. How can we identify it as a popular source?

  • The author's credentials aren't listed
  • There are no citations
  • It's written in a style that suggests it's for nonexperts in the field
  • Instead of referencing primary source texts or other scholarly articles, the author quotes from interviews with individuals