After learning that scholarly articles can be more complicated, you may be wondering how to read them. The following link will take you to a video detailing elements typically found in scholarly articles, so you can leverage that knowledge to navigate the information.

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article, from North Carolina State University Libraries 

Popular Publications

Newspapers and magazines are generally considered popular publications. Examples include Time Magazine, the New York Times newspaper, Popular Science, etc. Articles are usually written by journalists/reporters and mostly avoid technical language or jargon—they’re written for the non-expert. That doesn’t mean the articles are bad or false, but they’re not original research and they don’t have a peer review process. Generally, articles in popular sources are reviewed by editors and fact checkers, not experts on the topic.

Popular articles tend to be shorter. They sometimes, but not always, have images like photographs, decorative illustrations, etc. Authors might not be listed, or if they are, those authors might not be experts in the subject of the article. Popular articles are usually written for the general public, so they use more accessible language non-experts can quickly understand, and they may have a more casual tone.

Sometimes, popular sources like magazines and newspapers will be great for your research, and other times you need to show that you are relying on experts to support your arguments by using scholarly articles. However, you might find popular publications less welcome, and maybe less useful, as you continue in your chosen career or field of study. In other words, as you become an expert yourself, you will probably need to rely more on resources written for other experts!

Trade Publications

Trade publications are written by and for people in a specific field. Unlike scholarly journals, though, they’re usually more focused on practical news, opinions, or other casual information rather than original research studies. Many professional associations, for instance, publish newsletters or magazines. Because they’re written for people in a specific field, they do sometimes use jargon and technical language, but not as much as you may find in scholarly journals.

Books

Books provide detail and comprehensive coverage of topics that aren’t duplicated by other formats. Sometimes new student researchers avoid books because they think they’ll take too much time to read. However, books can be a great way to get a huge amount of information collected all in one place! You may only need to read a chapter or even a section, not the entire book. Use the Table of Contents (at the beginning of the book) or the Index (at the end of the book) to skip to just the portions that are most relevant. The Harper College Library also has a huge selection of ebooks you can access online at any time, meaning you don’t even have to travel to the Library to get them.

Online Formats

“Online formats” can be confusing for some students, because currently most of the information you use for research is accessed online. For instance, scholarly journals, popular magazines, and even books can be accessed through library websites. Moreover, you can find some scholarly journals, magazines, and ebooks for free using a search engine. The important thing to consider isn’t where you accessed the information (e.g., digitally vs. in print) but what type of information it is and who created it (e.g., a scholarly article created by a researcher vs. a news article created by a journalist).

For our purposes, we’ll define online content as materials that are available freely online that don’t fall into one of the other categories above (e.g., scholarly journals, ebooks, etc.). There are lots of formats that could be put in this category, but here are some of the most common:

Blogs — Frequently updated websites that don’t necessarily require extensive technical skills and can be published by virtually anyone, often at no cost to themselves other than the time they devote to content creation. Usually marked by postings that indicate the date when each was written.

Online Videos — Short videos produced by anybody, with a lot of money or a little money. Common sites for these are YouTube and Vimeo. Videos can be for any purpose, including to educate, to entertain, to frustrate, to document, etc.

Podcasts — Digital audio files that are available for downloading, often by subscription. They can be produced by average people or, by large media companies, or anything in between.

Social Media — Sites or apps that allow users to connect with other users to share information and interact. Examples include TikTok and Twitter. Because sharing happens so quickly, both accurate and inaccurate information can spread rapidly and widely.

Websites — Digital items, each consisting of multiple pages produced by someone with at least basic technical skills or the ability to pay someone with technical skills. It can be difficult to differentiate between a website and any of the other online formats listed above, but in practice the difference isn’t particularly relevant.

In general, all online content is quicker and simpler to produce than more traditional formats, which is both a strength and a weakness. It means anyone can easily share information, but that means it’s also easier for people to share careless, incorrect, or even harmful material. You should think critically about all information you find, but you want to be extra careful with online information!

The Information Timeline

The information timeline (sometimes called the information cycle or lifecycle) is one way for us to think about how different kinds of publications provide different perspectives on a topic based on when they are published. Understanding the information timeline lets us know when we can expect information sources to appear in publication, and more broadly improves our understanding of the role each type of source plays in our research. Different formats of information, after all, have varying levels of research depth, credibility, and currency.

We can walk through an example–researching a specific terrorist attack on the United States. Below you will find some common information types and when they would normally become available. Be sure to click to expand each section to find out more about how this example might play out in real life.

While information doesn’t always follow this timeline, understanding this example can help you decide how to approach your research. For example, if you’re researching something that happened recently, you may not find scholarly articles or books on that specific event (though you might be able to find some on similar events and relate them to your own topic).

You also want to think about what type of information you need and search accordingly. For instance, if you want eyewitness accounts, social media and news sites/newspapers would be the most obvious choices, and you can target your searches to those formats. If you want in-depth analysis however, you would be better off with a journal article or book. Knowing what you need and what type of source might have that information will let you design the best search strategy, choose the best search tools, and get more relevant and efficient results.

CHOOSING A SOURCE PRACTICE

Amaya is writing an argumentative essay for her English 101 class. She wants to investigate the impact gun violence has on survivors. She decides to use a YouTube video from someone identifying themselves as a gun violence survivor as a source in her essay. The video is self-published by the creator, not affiliated with any larger organization.

What are some of the reasons Amaya might use a video like this as a source? What are some of the problems with using such a source?

Do you think Amaya should have used this video as a source? Why or why not?

Where to Search

Once you know what format of information you need, you need to know what type of search tools contain what formats of information. For example, let’s say your professor requires at least one scholarly article for your essay. A Google search is unlikely to connect you with many (free) scholarly articles, so it might not be not be the best place to start searching. The library catalog is also a poor place to find scholarly articles, though it might be ideal for finding books and films. Once you know many library database contains scholarly articles, you can start your searching there instead of using search tools that won’t get you what you need.

The following is a brief list of some popular research tools, along with the kinds of content you can expect to find in each.

Search Engines

Where do you head first when you need some information in your personal life? If you’re like most people, that place is Google.

Google and other search engines are generally good at understanding what you want and giving you at least some relevant results, but it’s important to understand their strengths and limitations. First, not all information is available online for free. It may sometimes seem like “everything is online,” but there’s still a massive amount of information that isn’t freely available through a Google search. If you go no farther than Google, you’ll miss out! Second, in college you’re generally expected to go beyond basic websites and use the resources experts use. You’re expected to learn the specialized research tools available to you, especially as you move forward in your discipline. Over-relying on Google might eventually start to impact your grades and your credibility.

That said, Google and other search engines are invaluable tools that all modern researchers use routinely. (We’ll explore how to level-up your Google searches later in the chapter.)

Library Catalogs

Library catalogs let you search items owned by the library. Mostly that means print books, but the Harper Library catalog also includes ebooks, DVDs, sheet music, streaming videos, and other materials.

As a Harper student, you also have access to something called the I-Share catalog. I-Share is a network of academic libraries in Illinois that partner together to share resources. You can borrow materials, including books, from other I-Share schools with your Harper ID, either by going to those other libraries directly or having the material sent to Harper for pick up. The I-Share catalog allows you to search the materials owned by all those other libraries in one place, and it means you have access to millions of books we don’t own at Harper. (For help using the catalog or placing requests for items, talk to a Harper librarian.)

Library Databases

Library databases are an important resource for researchers, both student and professional. Understanding how they work will make your research in the future easier and more productive!

What is a library database? A database is just a searchable collection of information. We use different kinds of databases every day. Spotify is a database of music. Amazon.com is a database of products for sale. Even your cellphone includes a database of family and friends’ names and phone numbers. When we talk about library databases, we’re usually talking about a searchable collection of articles or other written materials, though Harper does also have image, video, and music databases.

A few characteristics of databases (be sure to click each statement to learn more):

Discovery Services

Discovery services allow someone to conduct a search across multiple collections at once. Whether you need books, a newspaper article, a streaming academic video, or a scholarly article, a discovery service may provide relevant results in one convenient location. Harper’s discovery service is called OneSearch, and you can access it from the Library’s homepage. Discovery services, including Harper’s OneSearch, aren’t perfect, though! While the content of most Harper databases appears in OneSearch results, it does not include content from all Harper databases. Determining which databases are included and which are not can be difficult, but a Harper librarian can help.

HOW TO SEARCH

Frequently, students come to the library after getting stuck in their research, saying “I just can’t find anything on my topic” or “I can find things on Google but not in library databases.” These types of challenges are extremely common and understandable! Whereas search engines are usually good at interpreting what we want, even if we didn’t ask for it in the clearest way, library databases aren’t very adept at interpreting what we want if we’re not clear. In addition, you may not be familiar with all the features and functions databases offer. There are many ways to improve your search results, however, both in library databases and even using search engines.

Limiters

Before you start a database search, take a moment to examine your options on the search screen. Explore what limiters are available to you. Have you ever searched online for a product to buy? Then you have probably used limiters. For example, have you set your search in an online store to only show you products below a certain dollar amount? That is a limiter—you told the site to limit the results it showed you to only items in your price range. Most search tools have some limiters that can help filter out results you don’t want. Here are some of the most common limiters you might encounter in library databases:

• Date or date range—Almost all databases allow you to limit results to a specific date, a range you set, or a general limit (e.g., the last 5 years).
• Scholarly/Peer Reviewed—Databases that contain different formats will often let you limit results to articles from only scholarly or peer-reviewed publications.
• Full Text—Some databases only provide full text articles, but others contain both full text articles as well as abstract-only entries. While you can request articles through Harper’s Interlibrary Loan service, if you want articles you can read immediately, find out if the database offers the option of limiting to full text results.
• Publication Type—If you’re trying to find only one specific type of source, you may find this kind of limiter useful. For instance, if you want newspaper articles, check whether the database you are using includes newspapers and whether you can limit your results to only that format.
• Many other options!—Take a few minutes to explore the screen when you first start searching in a database. A Harper librarian can also help you.

Keywords

We all conduct keyword searches in Google frequently. The basic process seems clear—we type in a word or string of words and Google provides us with a list of websites on which those words appear. It’s not always as easy to come up with effective keywords in library databases, however. Here are some general tips.

Keywords should:

• Identify the main concepts in your research question
• Be nouns and/or simple phrases
• Leave out words that don’t help the search, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and, usually, verbs

You should also:

• Try alternative terms, including related words, synonyms, and singular and plural forms of the words
• Note any terms you come across as you begin researching. Do the articles you found use different terminology you hadn’t thought of? Take note of those terms and add them to your searching.

Identifying and using effective keywords is a vitally important part of searching and often makes the difference between finding many useful sources and finding nothing useful. The following video from the Harper College Library offers more examples of how to make sure you’re using keywords effectively.

Tips for Online Searching

Most people know how to use search engines, but not everyone knows some of the more advanced tips for making your searches even more effective. You can find tips for using many different search engines by exploring online, but here are just a few to get you started using Google specifically:

• Use quotation marks to search for words as a phrase. Google will look for those words together in that exact order. For example, if you search “Mexican women entrepreneurs” with and without quotation marks in Google, you get slightly different results. Try searches with and without quotation marks and decide if it makes a difference in your results. (Many library databases also allow you to use quotation marks for phrase searching.)
• Use Google’s Advanced search. You can use the Advanced search to look for a phrase instead of using the shortcut mentioned above, as well as a number of other functions like searching only on a specific site, a domain (e.g., .edu, .gov, etc.), a language, a region, etc.
• Where and who you are matters when searching. Did you know Google does not show the same search results to everyone? It tailors results based on what it thinks you most want to receive. (There’s a name for this problematic phenomenon: filter bubble.) Your search history, your location, your language, and much more can all factor into your results. There isn’t always much you can do about it, but be aware of this filtering and consider digging a little deeper so you are at least pushing at those boundaries Google sets up for you.The following talk from author and entrepreneur Eli Pariser explains more about filter bubbles and the effect they can have on our world. As you watch, think about where you might be encountering filter bubbles. What might those bubbles do to the information you have access to, whose voices you hear, and your view of the world?
• Go beyond the first page of results. You should not assume the “best” info is always at the top.
• Try Google’s other products. Google Books, Google News, and Google Scholar are great specialized search tools. Sometimes their results will come up when you just search Google.com, but if you want to dig deeper try each individually.
  • Google Books is for ebooks (and sometimes info about print books) and usually lets you either preview portions of a title or sometimes read the whole thing for free.
  • Google News is for news articles from around the world. Articles can vary in quality, but it’s one option for finding current information.
  • Google Scholar is for academic materials like articles, but not everything here is free. Don’t pay for articles, however! Talk to a Harper librarian about how you can access what you find on Scholar for free from the Library.
• Try another search engine. Although it feels like it sometimes, Google isn’t the only search engine! Two popular options are DuckDuckGo and Bing.

Evaluating Information

Unfortunately, just because a source came up in a search doesn’t mean it’s right for your purposes. All sources need to be evaluated. This is especially important for sources you find on the internet, where it’s easier to publish with no oversight, but it’s important to evaluate the sources you find through the Library, too. Evaluation isn’t just about whether a source is “good” or “bad;” it’s also about determining whether a source is the best choice for your information need.

When you begin evaluating sources, what should you consider? The TRAAP guidelines are an easy-to-remember series of elements to guide your investigation. It stands for:

Timeliness

Relevance

Authority

Accuracy

Purpose

These criteria aren’t a checklist! Instead, think of them as prompts helping you decide where a source lies on the spectrum of quality and usefulness.

Timeliness

Certain topics require you to pay special attention to how current your resource is—because they’re time sensitive, because they’ve evolved so much over time, or because new research comes out on the topic frequently.

When evaluating currency, some questions to ask yourself include:

• Is older information still accurate/relevant? How frequently does information change about your topic?
• Is the information dated? Is it still suitable for your topic?
• What does your instructor require?

Relevance

Remember, just because a source came up in your search results doesn’t mean it’ll be useful! The source has to serve a purpose in your paper, speech, assignment, or real-life need.

When evaluating relevance, some questions to ask yourself include:

• Does the item provide information relevant to your argument or thesis? Will it support your argument or thesis in a way that’s important or unique?
• Does the information presented support or refute your ideas? If the information refutes your ideas, how will this change your argument?

Authority

Authority is focused on the author, which may be a person, persons, or even an organization.

Authority can also be contextual—someone who’s an expert in one subject isn’t necessarily an expert in another subject. Often this means doing a few minutes of outside research on the author(s), maybe using Google, to find out who they are and what credentials they have.

When evaluating authority, some questions to ask yourself include:

• What are the author’s credentials (e.g., education, titles, experience in the field, professional reputation, etc.)?
• What qualifies the author to write about this topic?
• What organization or body published the information or employs the author? Is it authoritative?

Accuracy

Determining where information comes from and if evidence supports the information can help you decide how and whether to use a source.

When determining accuracy, some questions to ask yourself include:

• Is the source well-documented? Does it include footnotes, citations, or a bibliography full of other authoritative sources? If you wanted, could you follow up on those sources to verify the information?
• Is information in the source presented as fact, opinion, or propaganda? Are biases clear?
• Sometimes, it’s difficult to assess accuracy when you’re new to a topic because you just don’t know enough to spot misinformation. As you learn more during your research, however, continue returning to your sources to consider whether they still seem accurate. Do their conclusions hold up in the face of all you’ve learned? Do sources agree on the facts, or do some of them have wildly different information? If so, those differing sources may need a closer look.

Purpose

Knowing why information was created is key to evaluation.

When determining purpose, consider the following:

• Is the author’s purpose to inform, sell, persuade, or entertain?
• Does the source have an obvious bias or prejudice? (This might mean doing a little outside research.)
• Does the author omit important facts or data that might disprove their argument?
• Is the author’s language informal, joking, emotional, or inflammatory? Why might they have chosen that language?
• Is the information clearly supported by evidence?

Fact Checking Vs. Evaluating Information

You may have heard people talk about misinformation and disinformation and how false information can spread rapidly in today’s hyper-connected world. One strategy often recommend is “fact checking,” or following up on facts you see, read, or hear to determine whether they’re accurate. Fact checking can and should be a part of evaluating information.

There are many ways to approach fact checking, but the following video from author John Green gives some clear advice about why and how you should check information you encounter.

Conclusion

The TRAAP guidelines or any other fact checking strategies aren’t checklists you fill out to get a definitive “yes this is a good quality source” or “no this isn’t a good quality source.” Sources exist along a continuum. Only by thoroughly exploring the source and thinking about it in the context of your project can you decide whether it’s the right source for you.

The answer can also change over time; as you learn more about your topic, you may find that your views on sources evolve. How high the stakes are for your need will also impact your evaluation. Research to settle a bet with your friend is certainly lower stakes than a paper worth 30% of your course grade, and that will have an impact on how you evaluate information.

What should not change, however, is including evaluation in your research process.

ETHICAL USE OF INFORMATION

To participate in college-level research is to engage with a chain of debate and scholarship that extends well beyond any individual scholar or researcher’s efforts. As new knowledge builds on or upends older established knowledge, a conversation of sorts develops across time. When we conduct or synthesize the research or writings of others in a college-level research paper, we participate in that conversation. The key holding this vast enterprise together is the notion of citation.

Citation is how scholars acknowledge or point to the work of earlier scholars. Ideally, citation provides a standard means for tracking down the research of others by providing enough information about the original source that others can easily find it. Citations typically include things like article titles, journal titles, authors, dates, and publication information. Citations will look different and contain different elements depending on citation style, discipline of study, and the format and nature of the information itself. The purpose is the same, though: to give credit to the original creators of words/ideas and to make the original source of any information you reference easily findable by others. This is our responsibility as participants in research.

Citations can also be a great research tool themselves. If you come across an article, book, or website that you find particularly useful, look at the sources it cites. Following up on those citations can help you locate even more relevant information in a short amount of time. (If you need help locating any sources, ask a librarian.)

Academic Honesty

All schools, including Harper College, have policies about academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty is a broad category that includes all forms of cheating and falsifying information, but for the purposes of research we’re most concerned with one form of academic dishonesty: plagiarism.

Harper’s Academic Honesty Policy says, “Plagiarism is the presentation of another person’s words, ideas, or work as one’s own. It includes but isn’t limited to copying any material, (written or non-written) without proper acknowledgement of its source, and paraphrasing another’s work or ideas without proper acknowledgement^[1].”

Harper takes plagiarism very seriously, and penalties for it can include having to redo assignments, receiving a lower or failing grade on an assignment, failing the course, being reported to the Student Conduct Office, and even, in some cases, getting expelled from Harper. Therefore, it’s critical that you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism can take many forms, but here are some of the common ones:

• Turning in someone else’s work, word-for-word, and claiming it as your own
• Changing key words and phrases of someone else’s work but mostly keeping the meaning the same
• Mixing copied material from multiple sources
• Trying to cite but doing it poorly (incomplete information, incorrect formatting, etc.)

Citation (including the proper use of borrowed material) is the tool you use to avoid plagiarism. Citing serves several purposes:

• To acknowledge others for their ideas, words, and images
• To lend credibility to our arguments
• To connect our ideas to other writers’ ideas in our field
• To provide readers with sources that they can use for their own projects

In academic work, citing is done using specific citation styles, which are methods for documenting sources and information. The two most popular, and the ones you are most likely to encounter at Harper, are MLA and APA styles. This chapter won’t detail how to cite specifically, but there are many resources available at Harper and on the web that can help you create or gather citations. You can find more resources in the Do You Want to Know More? section of this chapter.

The video below will provide more examples of plagiarism and how you can avoid it during your time at Harper and beyond.

Artificial Intelligence and Plagiarism

AI tools such as ChatGPT are changing the process of writing in many industries and pushing the boundaries of what we consider “original” work and thought. While exploring the complexities and ethical challenges of AI is beyond the scope of this chapter, it’s important to note that taking work (text, images, ideas, etc.) created by artificial intelligence and submitting it as if it’s your own is considered plagiarism. Be sure you carefully read your syllabi and other documentation from your professors so you understand their policies about the use of AI, and if they haven’t stated their position, ask. It’s your responsibility to understand and adhere to the academic honesty policies of your class and Harper as a whole.