Library Orientation for Students

How to tell if an article is peer-reviewed:

1. In Primo, they will be marked with a purple label. Narrow a search by clicking "Articles" or "Peer Reviewed Journals."

2. In some databases, they will be marked "scholarly" instead of peer-reviewed. Most of our databases have academic sources. Some have them mixed with other types of sources but you can filter the search.

3. You can Google the journal name and find the journal's home page, which will describe their editorial review process

4. You can often tell by the way a journal appears (long articles, bibliographies, no ads) and is organized (volume/issue)

How to tell if a book is academic or peer-reviewed:

1. check the publisher--is it academic (Google the publisher if not sure) or credible?

2. check who the author is

3. does it contain academic-style research and citations?

Our library has many academic & other credible books both in print and e-book form.

Why Peer-Reviewed?

What is an "academic" source exactly? You may also hear them called scholarly or peer-reviewed.  How do you know if you have one in front of you? Where can you find them?  What qualifies as one? Many of your professors will want to see academic sources, or will require only academic sources.
 

Academic works are non-commercial sources, as opposed to popular sources, which are sold in a commercial market. Popular sources are things like magazines, newspapers, websites, and commercial books.  They are trying to make money, which can lead to bending the truth, being sensationalized, preaching to the choir, or making biased and hyper-emotional arguments. They can also be unoriginal, superficial, or lack good sources to back up claims.  That is not to say there is nothing good in popular sources--they are great for learning about opinions, issues, current events, eyewitness accounts, and finding new ideas. We are reading many non-academic sources in this class that call attention to cultural problems and have insightful solutions and arguments. Many original and influential thinkers are writing outside of academia.  
 

Academic sources, however, offer something unique. They are not written for money--but for research and the pursuit of knowledge by experts and scholars, usually professors. They supposed to be objective, evidence-based, in-depth, and original, containing information you can't find elsewhere, that is cutting edge. That does not mean they can't contain bias, illogical arguments, or problems in worldview, but they are generally considered credible.
 

Types of Academic Sources:
 

1. Books (by academic writers and/or publishers, containing original research & extensive bibliographies)

2. Book Chapters (in collections, where each chapter is by a different scholar--each chapter counts as a separate source)

3. Journal Articles (in journals marked "peer-reviewed," as opposed to magazines or newspapers)

4. Reference Works (encyclopedias, dictionaries, glossaries, commentaries, or other works where you get quick info)

5. Dissertations and Theses (book-length research written by graduate students for PhD's or Master's Degrees) and

6. Conference Talks or Proceedings (lectures given at academic conferences)

There are three easy ways to tell if you have an academic source:
 

1. For books, check the publisher. Is it a university press or an academic publishing house? If not sure, look up the publisher online. There are also scholarly Christian publishers, like Eerdman's.  
 

2. For any source, check the author's credentials, degrees, current job, and other publications.  Is he or she an academic expert?
 

3. For journal articles, look for the purple label "peer-reviewed" in Primo (see image below), or the label "scholarly" in a database, or you can research the journal's reputation. Does it claim to be peer-reviewed, academic, or scholarly on its website?

"Peer-reviewed" means that other experts (peers of the author) have reviewed, checked, and often challenged the research methods, logic, and conclusions, so you can be fairly sure the information is good, depending on the standards of the journal. 

Of course, conclusions in journal articles are sometimes later shown to be incorrect, and there have even been hoaxes where joke articles making ridiculous claims were accepted in supposedly scholarly journals. However, you will need to use them and know what they are.  Besides looking up the reputation of a journal, look at the article itself.
 

Journal articles are different from magazine articles visually.
 

Look for these clues if you are wondering if you have an academic journal article:
 

• Journal articles are long (10-20 pages single spaced),
• contain no ads, little color, and few images, except graphs or images used as evidence,
• have long bibliographies at the end,
• and cite tons of sources in the articles.
• They look a bit plain, but they contain original research and ideas. 
• They often have a long, detailed title and an abstract (summary) to tell you what they're about, so you can scan through them in a database and find relevant sources easily. 
• And, journals often have the word "journal" or "review" in the title to make it extra-easy for you to find academic sources (and to build their ethos as academic publications). An example is The Journal of Modern Literature or The Journal of Family Studies or The New England Journal of Medicine. 

When using Primo library search, click "Articles" as your filter in the left margin, and you will then see a lot of journal articles.

Many of our databases are only journal articles (some also contain books or popular articles) and you can narrow the search to only "scholarly" or "peer reviewed."   If you want to see if we have a particular journal, try our journal title search.

Google Scholar will also find journal articles; be sure to link your Google Scholar to Regent's databases.. On occasion, they are "open access" or free online, but most of them are expensive to read on the web, so please get them for free through the library, as this is a great benefit you have as a student. 

You can sometimes find free journal articles on government sites like NIH, and you can even find good ones cited in Wikipedia (use our LibKey tool to link from academic citations on the web to our databases).  

If your professor says you need eight academic sources, those would usually be books, journal articles, or book chapters. Some professors may want primary sources (such as historical documents) or dissertations as well. Some professors will specify just journal articles.

You can also cite good reference works in addition to the full-length required sources for a paper. Different disciplines have different reference works (such as the DSM for psychology, commentaries for theology, etc.).
 

"Reference Works" are academic sources to find credible, but brief, information, like a definition of a single term. At Regent Library, we have great academic reference databases, such as Oxford Reference and Credo Reference.  We also have the wonderful Oxford English Dictionary, which is highly recommended.  You can search for a term in Primo and then use "Reference Entries" as your filter to get a definition that is only a paragraph or so long, if you need a precise, academic definition.  These don't count as full articles, obviously, but you can cite them in academic papers. 

Can I Ever Use Non-Academic or Non-Library Sources?
 

Some professors will allow you to use think tank research, if it seems useful & credible, or commercial books if they have valuable ideas (and many of them are written by academic authors). 
 

When looking at research from religious groups, non-profit organizations, think tanks, or other groups that do research, always look at how data was compiled and whether there are any assumptions being made that you would question. For example, many think tanks and other groups have compiled data on mass shootings, but they use different definitions of what a mass shooting is, perhaps to make the number seem greater or to boost their political views as to what the best solutions are to this terrible problem.  Their data organization (what they measure, what they emphasize) or conclusions drawn may show that bias. Many think tanks are neutral (like Pew) or they state their political views up front (and it's important to have that context). It's ok to read something that has a strong point-of-view if you are aware of the author's perspective, and if the author makes good points and backs them up. 
 

It's good to be aware of think tanks because they provide perspective not always seen in academia, such as religious views. There are many important and influential articles in magazines and newspapers as well.
 

See this research guide for links to some great religious and political think tanks, magazines, newspapers, and non-profits to further your research.