Student Athletes

This guide is designed to help you with your research and writing.

What is out there?

The library has Research Guides for all disciplines and even for many classes! Spend time exploring the Research Guide related to your subject. It will give links to many resources for your research.

There are many different resources that can help at different points of your work. Would it be best to start looking for books, journal articles, or others? See below.

Do you need scholarly or popular materials? Has your instructor asked for "peer-reviewed" articles?

Types of Sources

Books offer:

a comprehensive view of a topic
writing by credible authors
work that has gone through and editing and review process

Encyclopedia and other reference materials offer:

a quick overview of your topic
citations of more comprehensive work (usually, but not always - think Wikipedia!)
information that may be very useful in specific fields (e.g. sciences)

Newspapers offer:

short, topical articles
easy to read (written for the general public)
covering topics of general interest
no citations or references

Databases offer:

access to subject-specific resources including scholarly articles; searches across many (even into the 100's) journal titles
options to filter/limit search criteria
tools for research chaining (links: subject, author, etc.)

Magazines offer:

shorter topical articles
appeal to the general public
glossy pictures and graphics
often no references

Scholarly & Peer Reviewed Journals offer:

research articles and studies written by experts
peer-reviewed: work that has been vetted by a committee of experts in the field
in-depth and subject specific information
long articles with references, abstracts, literature reviews, methodology, etc.

Trade Publications offer:

news and reports, forecasts, and reviews from a specific industry or profession
may provide highly specialized information and statistics
frequently used in areas like business and law

Conference proceedings are oral presentations, posters and papers on a specific topic, often related to a professional or personal interest association. Conference proceedings are often scholarly in nature, but not always. It is common for research results to be in-progress or not yet completed. As they are not published in traditionally scholarly means, we call this type of resource "grey literature".

Social Media offers a place where information is shared, curated, and disseminated by experts, scholars and laypersons. Almost anyone with an internet connection can participate in social media, and can participate in sharing thoughts and opinions through forums, chats, direct messages, photos, videos, "liking", re-tweeting etc. Issues with social media include: digital divide, censorship, bias, accuracy and authority of information, privacy in exchange for participation, and author credit (re-tweeting versus copying and pasting).

Scholarly or Popular

Scholarly	Popular
Written by experts Audience: researchers and professionals Writing details research and research process Work contains a list of references and citations Examples: Journal of Food Science, Journal of Applied Psychology	Written by journalists Audience: nonprofessional an/or general public Briefly discusses or explains a study or research, does not go in depth Covers news and general interest topics No bibliography or citation Examples: New York Times, People, The Economist

Peer Review	Trade Publications / Experts
A sober second look Expert findings and research evaluated in a review process Covers methodology and theory of research projects Useful for most academic areas Not always found in fields like Business, Education, Law Includes: citation, references, bibliography No advertisements and few images	Audience: members of a specific business, industry or organization Authored by experts, staff writers and journalists Expert practitioner findings considered scholarly in some disciplines Highlights industry trends, new products, organizational news Usually includes editorial review May have short bibliographies

You may be asked to consult a peer-reviewed journal or use refereed papers for your assignments. Not all scholarly journals participate in a peer-review process, which is a way publishers ensure articles meet the standards of their journal. A peer reviewed paper is submitted and a panel of experts (often calls go out to individuals in the field) read and critique the piece. Any suggestions, errors, omissions or problematic aspects identified by the reviewers are provided in comments to the authors and a paper is either rejected, accepted, or accepted with revisions. To avoid bias, peer-review is done best in a blinded way so that both the author and the peer-reviewers have their personal and institutional information stripped so that it is unknown who either party is.

To determine if a journal participates in peer-review, check the "About" or "Information for Authors" sections where that will be explained. It is common for peer-reviewed journals to have certain categories where peer-review occurs (research and review papers ets), and others (like letters, opinion, product summaries etc) where it doesn't. You can also use the Ulrich database to get a quick sense as to whether a journal is refereed.