You will need to evaluate each article you find to determine if it is appropriate for you to use in your work. Use the following criteria to evaluate your articles:
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Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.
Association of College & Research Libraries
To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.
While assisting students with their research projects, librarians aim to also help students to develop their information literacy skills. The goal is for students to learn how to navigate library resources, develop effective keywords and search strategies, evaluate sources to determine whether they are relevant and credible, and use the sources they find effectively and ethically.
Writing Tutors can assist students by developing their own information literacy skills. Tutors can help students determine whether the sources they have used in their paper are appropriate, and guide them in integrating research into their writing effectively.
Scholarly Articles / Academic Articles / Journal Articles / Peer-reviewed Articles
Peer-reviewed articles are published in scholarly journals and are written by experts in the field, generally academic faculty, researchers, and other qualified individuals. They are generally intended for an audience of other experts and students. During the peer review process, articles are reviewed and evaluated by a panel of experts who determine whether they are appropriate for publication in the journal.
Empirical Articles / Empirical Research
Empirical articles are peer-reviewed publications containing original research, based on experiments, observations, or data conducted or collected by the author(s). Empirical articles are usually organized into the following sections: Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology/Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. They are published in scholarly journals.
Examples of empirical articles:
Systematic Reviews / Review Articles / Literature Reviews / Review Essays
This type of article summarizes previous research done on a particular topic. Most review articles have the words "Systematic Review" or "A Review" in the title. They are published in scholarly journals. Systematic reviews generally involve a particularly comprehensive plan and method of searching for relevant sources, which is usually described in the article.
Review articles do not contain original research, but most articles that do contain original research also include a literature review section. In addition, review articles are a great place to find articles with original research, and to get a sense of the scholarly conversation around a topic.
Examples of review articles:
Book Reviews
Many scholarly journals also publish book reviews. Scholars summarize and assess the strengths and weaknesses of one or more books in their field of study.
Newspapers & Magazines
Newspapers and magazines contain articles on current events and culture. They are intended to be read by a general audience. They publish reportage (factual coverage of current events), op-eds (opinion pieces furthering the personal views and arguments of the author), editorials (pieces written by the editor of the publication to offer their viewpoint on a given topic), among other kinds of articles. Newspapers and magazines often themselves have ideological and/or political tendencies reflected in their news coverage and the types of op-eds they publish.
Scholarly Books
Scholarly books written by one author are also called monographs. These books provide an extensive overview of a topic.
Scholarly edited volumes collect articles written by many authors on a particular topic.
Reference Books / Reference Sources
Reference sources include dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedias, and textbooks. They are intended to provide a broad overview of a topic. They do not include original research.
Primary Sources vs. Secondary Sources
Primary sources are records of events or evidence as they are first described or actually happened without any interpretation or commentary. It is information that is shown for the first time or original materials on which other research is based.
The term "primary source" may mean different things in different academic disciplines. In the context of historical research, primary sources are sources that were created during the time under research; examples include letters, diaries, government records, photographs, etc. In the context of literary research and criticism, the primary source would be the book, poem, or essay being analyzed. The original research produced for a scholarly article -- interview, survey, fieldwork, or dataset -- can also be considered a primary source.
Secondary sources offer an analysis or restatement of primary sources. They often try to describe or explain primary sources. They tend to be works which summarize, interpret, reorganize, or otherwise provide an added value to a primary source.