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ELC2014 - Advanced English for University Studies

Scholarly sources

Scholarly sources help you develop an academic argument for your research. Scholarly journals and books are two major scholarly sources you will need for your research work.

You have probably heard from your instructor that you would need to read peer-reviewed journal articles. So what are peer-reviewed journal articles and where to find them?

Find Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

What are Journal Articles?
What are Peer-reviewed Journals?
  • Present the findings of a study, research or experiment
  • Provides in-depth analysis of ONE specialized topic
  • Written by scholars or experts in the discipline
  • Peer-reviewed or refereed journals have an editorial board of subject experts who review and evaluate submitted articles before accepting them for publication.
  • A journal may be a scholarly journal but not a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Scholarly journals use this process to protect and maintain the quality of the material they publish. See an example from a journal publisher: WILEY's Peer Review Process

This is what a typical journal article looks like. The key components are highlighted.

Where to Find Journal Articles?

Library subscribes to a huge number of scholarly journals in different disciplines. You can use OneSearch, the Library's search engine, to find the articles in these journals based on the topic you have.

Watch this video to learn how this works.

Find Books

The quickest way to find books is through a direct search in OneSearch. You may search by Keywords, Title of the Book, Call Number, or ISBN number. Follow the steps below:

  1. Visit the Library homepage, click on the embedded search box, or directly visit OneSearch.
  2. Type in your keywords or title of the book and hit the search button.
  3. Limit results to "Books" under Resource Type on the right panel of the page. You may further refine results to "Physical items" (which means print books only), or "Full Text Online" (which means e-books only). 
  4. Click on the book title to see more information about the book.
  5. For print books, the location is described by its Call Number. You will need to find the book from the bookshelf and check it out at the Service Counter at P/F (see below for How to Read Call Numbers).
    For e-books, sign in with your NetID and NetPassword to get access to the full-text of the book.

Click to see the steps in screenshots

Anatomy of a Journal Article

Understanding more about the structure of a journal article helps you strategize your reading. 

Here is an example to illustrate the typical structure of a scholarly article. 

Article source: Suen, L. K. P., Lung, V. Y. T., Boost, M. V., Au-Yeung, C. H., & Siu, G. K. H. (2019). Microbiological evaluation of different hand drying methods for removing bacteria from washed hands. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 13754.  (CC BY 4.0)

Structure of a Scholarly Article:

Scholarly articles usually have lengthy and very specific titles.
Lists all authors' names, indicates the corresponding author, and their affiliated institution or organization. Sometimes Affiliations are listed at the bottom of the first page.

Briefly describes:

  • Purpose of the study (Why)
  • Methodology (How)
  • Key findings (What they found)
  • Conclusion (What it means)

Introduction

  • explains motivation and importance of research
  • provides background information

Literature Review

  • reviews previous research on the topic (what is already known)
  • identifies research gaps (what is not yet known)
  • helps establish context for the research presented in the paper (how this work addresses the gap)

Sometimes Introduction and Literature Review are written in two separate sections.

Describes how the research was conducted. Normally include:

  • experimental design, techniques, materials/ participants
  • procedure to replicate the data collection and analysis process

Summarizes significant findings of their research.

Usually include Figures or Tables to illustrate the findings in a compact and easy-to-view format. 

  • interprets main findings in relation to data and existing studies
  • explains how the results support the conclusions

Summarizes main findings, implications, or limitations.

May also include a Future Work section to suggest areas where further research is needed.

Lists other research works used in the paper in a consistent citation style. 

Commonly seen sections:

Acknowledgments: lists Funding sources; shows gratitude to any other support on the research. 

Author Contributions: describes the contribution of each author.

Conflict of Interest: declares if the authors have any financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations or people that could influence the research. 

For Open Access articles, often there will be a disclaimer to indicate the license for reusing the work (e.g. CC BY).
Disclaimer: Each scholarly article is different, and different disciplines emphasize different components. Some of the above components might be missing from your article, in a different order, or your article might include components not mentioned above. That’s okay! You can still use what you already know to help figure out any new sections you encounter.

Adapted from Reading Academic Articles - Anatomy of an Academic Article (University of Washington Libraries)

Subjects: Course Guides
Tags: ELC