Library Research Quick Start

Scholarly articles are written by researchers or experts in a field to share the results of their research with other researchers and students. These articles go through the peer review process, where the article is reviewed by a group of experts in the field. They are published in academic journals, which are publications showcasing scholarship within a specific academic discipline.

You can tell that you are reading a scholarly article because it:

• lists the authors and their academic affiliations (such as universities or research institutes);
• states the journal of publication, which you can search for online and evaluate;
• follows the general format of Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion; and
• cites its sources in footnotes or a references section.

Here is a good example of what a scholarly article looks like:

1. Search for articles by title, author, or keywords. You can combine keywords with AND.

2. Filter the results to just articles by selecting "Resource Type" > "Article."

3. Open the article record to read the article description (abstract) and access the PDF.