MUS 309: Traditional Music of the U.S.

What are Scholarly/Academic/Peer-reviewed Sources?

Scholarly/academic/peer-reviewed sources are sources written by experts and are reviewed by experts in the field before the article is published.

Why Do I Need to Evaluate Scholarly Sources?

You may consider scholars with subject expertise have authority in the area of your research topic and thus produce only good sources. However, like all types of sources and authorities, scholarly sources vary a lot by date, scope, method, and etc, making only some of them appropriate to cite in your research. Scholarly sources may have totally valid evidence but not so relevant to your research. 

How Do I Evaluate Scholarly Sources?

Finding a good scholarly source to use can sometimes be a messy process, but below are some questions you can ask yourself in order to determine if the academic article is worth using in your research.

• Date: Some topics, such as those in the health sciences, require current information. Other subjects, such as geology, value older material as well as current. Know the time needs of your topic and examine the timeliness of the article; is it:
  • up-to-date,
  • out-of-date, or
  • timeless?
• Usefulness: Is the article relevant to the current research project? A well-researched, well-written, etc. article is not going to be helpful if it does not address the topic at hand. Ask, "is this article useful to me?" If it is a useful article, does it:
  • support an argument
  • refute an argument
  • give examples (survey results, primary research findings, case studies, incidents)
  • provide "wrong" information that can be challenged or disagreed with productively
• Impact: Scholars have combined standard research metrics, like scholarly output and citation counts, into formulas to measure and assess author and journal impact in new ways. There are usually different types of metrics for different purposes, but in general, you can pay attention to
  • the number of times an article was cited to evaluate the scholarly output of a scholar
  • the number of times articles published for a journal to evaluate the impact of a journal
  • metrics in databases as shown below

More information about factors to consider when evaluating scholarly articles

More information about understanding impact 

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17^th edition (official complete ebook)

Call number Z253 .U69 2003, ​available in print on the first floor of the library in the Learning Commons

Citing Archival Materials in Chicago 

Turabian Quick Guide from the University of Chicago Press

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, 8^th edition by Kate Turabian et al.

Call number LB2369 .T8 2013, available in print on the first floor of the library in the Learning Commons

https://forms.gle/bTmKXp61EncdCaQbA

This guide is a quick introduction to the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th Edition Style for citations, basic format, and sample annotated bibliography. Please be sure to consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 7th edition and/or the APA Style website for additional details.

There is a print copy available (call number is BF76.7 .P83 2020) at the Reference Desk, the Learning Commons Reference Collection and the third floor.

• APA 7 for Business : This is a continuously updated document created by business librarians across the US to give citation examples for common business databases (Mintel, Business Source Premier, IBIS, etc.) and documents (reports, analysis, etc.).

Most Notable changes from APA 6th edition to 7th edition

1. Publisher location is NOT included for book citations.

2. In-text citations from works with three or more authors is shortened from the first time mentioned to (Hernandez et al., 2020)

3. Include up to 20 authors in the reference.

4. DOIs need to be formatted as clickable URLs such as https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400256   

5. Don’t include “Retrieved from” in front of a URL unless a retrieval date is needed.

6. For website citation include the website name, unless it is the same as the author.

7. Clear guidelines for citing media contributors that are not authors or editors.

8. Citation examples are provided for different types of online sources including: podcasts, youtube videos, and social media posts.  

9. Use the singular “they” as a gender neutral pronoun instead of he or she.

10. Clear format guidelines are provided for student and professional research papers.

11. More flexibility in font choices/size and include:

    1. Calibri 11

    2. Arial 11

    3. Lucida Sans Unicode 10

    4. Times New Roman 12

    5. Georgia 11

12. The running head on the title page no longer includes the words Running head. It now only includes the title of the paper and the page number.

13. Student papers do not need to include a running head. (Unless specified from your instructor)

14. At the end of a sentence, use one space instead of two.