Embedded Resources by Rebecca Gagne

Finding and Understanding Scholarly Sources 

Scenario: You have to write a short research paper for SCI1050. Your professor requires that at least two of the articles you include in your works cited are scholarly.

Consider: What does scholarly mean? What makes a source scholarly? Why is your professor even requiring scholarly sources? How do you find a scholarly source and then read it?

Article

Instructions

Find Your Group Number on the Google Doc for then write the name of each person in your group!

1. Choose a presenter for your group.
2. As a group, identify a topic.
3. Use the databases to find a scholarly article on your topic
4. Once in the database, select an article to review

5. Review your article and answer the following:

   • Include citation or title and link of article
   • Review the Methodology or Methods and Results section. Who is being studied? Who is not included in the study methods?
   • Copy and paste a quote from the literature review that connects to the research study goals.
   • Review the Results, Conclusions and Discussion sections. Briefly describe what the researchers were able to determine based on their study.

6. Share out to the rest of the class.

How to Start a Search: 

Step 1: Think about your research topic/question

Step 2: Extract the main keywords/concepts

Step 3: Input each of the words into the search lines. Click 'Search'!

• Example Research Question: How does social media affect mental health?
• Search Terms: Social Media (and) Mental Health

Bonus Step: Select search limiters (left side of screen)

• Full Text
• Scholarly/Peer Reviewed

Your search page will look similar to this! .... 

Which library databases should you use? 

My recommendations:

 Research article components to look for - labels can vary:

• Abstract

  • A brief summary at the beginning, describing the larger work. May include the thesis or claim, background, and scope of the research. 

• Literature review

  • A critical overview of previous research that is relevant to the topic, usually in the introduction or beginning of the article. (Hint: look for many in-text citations)

• Methods/Methodology

  • Describes how the study/research was designed, includes the description of the participants of the study (who or what was studied), and how the data was collected. 

• Results

  • Describes the data collected, who was included (who was left out)

• Discussion

  • The discussion section is one of the final parts of a research article, in which an author describes, analyzes, and interprets their findings. They explain the significance of those results and tie everything back to the research question(s).

• Conclusion

  • Usually the final section of the article and explains the importance of the research and suggests future research on the topic.

The Academic Success Center is open for in-person and remote appointments by zoom.

Whether you're just getting started or need final editing advice, writing tutors are kind and trained to help you at any stage of the writing process. Visit the Academic Success Center website for more information.

Top Tips for Working with the Academic Success Center:

1.    Book an appointment by phone: 401-598-1485  
2.    Visit us live on the first floor of the Yena Center

For 24/7 at no extra charge tutoring support and academic success coaching, log into JWULINK to use tutor.com and schedule a session.

Look for the link in jwuLink, type tutor.com in the search bar.  It will be the first link to come up! Log in to your account with your JWU credentials and then, it will auto-populate with your name and you're ready to go!

The JWU library has two style guides: 

MLA Style Guide

APA Style Guide

However, if you need more in depth guidance on formatting go to the Purdue OWL. 

Need to talk to someone and seek guidance in real time?

• If you are an online student, you can go to the online writing center for information about how to contact a writing coach. 
• If you are a PVD campus student you can schedule an appointment with the writing coach through uSucceed. 

If you use the library's databases for your research, you can copy and paste pre-generated citations - look out for the option as it may appear differently in each interface but is generally represented by an icon of quotation marks.

If you need to cite a resource not located in a database, I recommend using the OWL as a reference. You can also reach out to me or JWU Library for help with citations!