Research guides: AHLT 104: Professional Communication for Allied Health: Finding Specific Types of Resources

Introduction

Research involves gathering and interpreting information. To answer a question or understand an issue, you have to seek relevant information, which helps you develop your point of view.

Your assignment guidelines will state the sources you can use, and you must be careful to use the correct sources. The questions below will also help you determine what sources to use.

Do you require current material (e.g. material published within the last five years)?
Do you need information from a particular type of publication (e.g. peer-reviewed journals, scholarly publications or popular magazines)?
How many sources do you need?

Also, remember that not all sources are scholarly or peer-reviewed. Many may be popular sources.

Books: Books will provide an excellent general overview of a topic but are generally not as up-to-date as the other sources (depending on your topic, that might not matter). Further, not all books are scholarly.

Articles: Articles from journals and magazines deal with more specific topics than books and are usually more up-to-date. Not all articles are scholarly or peer-reviewed.

Source Types: Scholarly, popular & trade articles

Source Types
Tips for reading scholarly articles

	PEER REVIEWED	NOT PEER-REVIEWED
	SCHOLARLY	TRADE	POPULAR
Examples	American Journal of Nursing	Nursing Standard	Psychology Today
Purpose	to inform and report on the original research or experimentation	to provide news and information	to entertain, persuade or sell products or services
Audience	other researchers and scholars in the field	people in a particular industry or profession	general public
Cited Sources	substantial footnotes and/or references	occasionally include brief footnotes and/or references	rarely include references
Authors	scholars or researchers in the field	practitioners within the industry	magazine staff, free-lance writers, or the general public
Language	technical terminology appropriate to the discipline	the jargon of the industry or profession	simple language to meet a minimum education level
The reader is assumed to have	a similar scholarly background	background in the field	no prior knowledge
Appearance	mostly text	mix of text and images in a attractive format	>mix of text and images in a attractive format
Article length	articles are lengthy	brief articles	brief articles
Structure	often structured into these sections can include abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, bibliography	no standard structure	no standard structure
Advertising	no advertising	advertising aimed at people in the field	advertising aimed at the general public

Scholarly articles in the social sciences/sciences are written by academics and specialists in the field and include findings from primary/original research. It is not recommended that you read a scholarly article from beginning to end, rather....

Step 1	Read and consider the article title	This will give you clues about the topic Ask yourself: Is the article still relevant to your research topic?
Step 2	Scan the headings/sections of the article	This will give you more clues about the topic. Ask yourself: Is the article still relevant to your research topic?
Step 3	Read the abstract	This is the summary of the article, usually dense with information. New articles may include keywords supplied by the author(s). Scan these keywords to: Give you additional information about the scope of the article Help you develop search terms for database searches Ask yourself: Is the article still relevant to your research topic?
Step 4	Read the first few paragraphs of the Discussion section	This section will include a summary of the major findings from the study and will: explain why findings are essential to the field of study highlight limitations of the study and recommend possibilities for future research Ask yourself: Is the article still relevant to your research topic?
Step 5	Read the remaining sections of the article	Before you read a section, convert the headings into a question. This will set the context for what you will learn in that section. Seek out the answer to this question as you read the section. Read the Introduction carefully - spend time here! The Introduction will provide background information about the topic and summarize previous research. Make a note of the hypothesis found in the Introduction section. Suggested order of reading: Introduction, Discussion, Results, then the Methods section. Ask yourself: Is the article still relevant to your research topic?
Step 6	Examine the Works Cited/References	Note other relevant studies on the topic and locate these publications through Library databases.

Scholarly vs popular books

Scholarly books disseminate research and academic discussion among professionals within disciplines. They are intended for academic study and research, and are preferred when writing college-level papers. They are published by academic or university presses.

Adapted from University of Toronto Libraries.

Scholarly Books Non-Scholarly Books

Purpose	To share with other scholars the results of primary research & experiments.	To entertain or inform in a broad, general sense.
Author	A respected scholar or researcher in the field; an expert in the topic; names are always noted.	A journalist or feature writer; names not always noted.
Publisher	A university press; a professional association or known (independent) scholarly publisher.	A commercial publisher.
Intended audience	Other scholars or researchers in the field, or those interested in the topic at a research level.	General public.
Style	Language is formal and technical; usually contains discipline-specific jargon.	Language is casual. Few, if any, technical terms are used (and if they are, they are usually defined).
References	References are always cited and expected; text often contains footnotes.	Very uncommon; text may contain referrals to "a study published at..." or "researchers have found that..." with no other details.

Adapted from University of Toronto Libraries

These clues will go a long way towards assisting you in differentiating between books intended for the scholar and, therefore, preferred when writing research papers, from trade publications or mass-market publications that are designed for a general audience.

Publisher: An excellent clue to a scholarly resource is its publisher.

Books from publishers specializing in the field will tend to be of better quality textually then those that don’t.

Look for “About” and a “Mission Statement”
Consider how long they’ve been in business?
Do they provide services to academia?
Books published by a university press will tend to be more academically sound than those published by trade publishers, especially if the institution has a good reputation in the field covered by the work.

Cited References and Bibliography: Even more than a useful tool for evaluating the reliability of an author, cited references are an excellent indication of the scholarship of a work.

Look for cited references or at least a bibliography. Most books intended for the scholar contain citations and a bibliography, whereas books designed for a general audience do not.
Also, consider who is being cited; how frequently are the references cited elsewhere; has anyone cited the work being evaluated and is this perhaps the primary source?
For works in the humanities, a good clue that you’ve found the primary source is when you keep getting referred to the same source over and over again.
Works in the sciences will report on original research.

Content: examine these aspects of the work to assist in ascertaining the scholarship of a work:

Accuracy: how does the information compare to that of other works on the subject?
Biases: all authors are biased, but scholarly works tend to reflect the results of research in the field and not propagandize.
Preface, Introduction, Table of Contents, Conclusion and Index: most scholarly works will have several, if not all, of these components. Consider also how well the author lives up to his/her claims indicated in the preface, introduction and conclusion.
Audience appropriate: a scholarly work will be written to those with some knowledge of or ability to understand the topic under discussion.

Graphics, Charts, Illustrations, etc.: many scholarly works will have graphs, charts, illustrations, etc.