What is a scholarly article?
Professors are always telling students to look for scholarly or research journal articles for their papers. For every field of research and study, there are scholarly journals.
What are the characteristics of a scholarly journal:
- Scholarly journals are published by universities, research or professional organizations or associations, or specialized publishers
- Scholarly journals don't have pictures in them, unless you are looking in a photography journal. (There aren't any ads for cars or beers either. The only ads you will see are for books or conferences)
- Articles are written by professors and researchers in a specific field or discipline. They present the results of their research.
- Articles have extensive documentation in the form of footnotes and bibliographies.
- Articles are usually quite long and detailed. Titles are often long and detailed as well.
- You will see lots of tables and graphs in some disciplines, like mathematics or accounting or the sciences.
- Most importantly, scholarly articles are reviewed by a group of experts in the field before publication. This PEER REVIEWING process ensures that the article is of high quality and the research well done.
Example of a research article from a scholarly journal:
Notice that the article includes an abstract, a literature review, a section on methodology, results, and a conclusion.
Adolescent Females Between Tradition and Modernity: Gender Roles Socialization in South Asian Immigrant Culture
If you need more information about scholarly journals, watch the short video on the left.