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RELS 162 Library Presentation. Peer-reviewed vs. popular sources (and more . . . ?). Preliminaries:. And your instructor is . . . The handouts. What we will cover:. The differences and similarities between types of materials (peer-reviewed, scholarly, and popular)
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RELS 162 Library Presentation Peer-reviewed vs. popular sources (and more . . . ?)
Preliminaries: • And your instructor is . . . • The handouts
What we will cover: • The differences and similarities between types of materials (peer-reviewed, scholarly, and popular) • The correlation between type of material and the item’s authority, credibility, and reliability • If time permits, an overview of the Opposing Viewpoints database
Why does understanding the distinctions between peer-reviewed, scholarly, and popular materials matter?Why does understanding how this relates to evaluation matter?
RELS 162 requires these skills.Your final paper requires peer-reviewed sources.
Why this matters (cont.) . . . • Professors (in general) often specify peer-reviewed sources, and you should know what that means • Research and writing should ideally be based on the best information available (and this requires evaluating sources) • When the topics tend to be controversial, using the best sources of information is particularly important
Do you need to understand what “peer-reviewed” or “scholarly” means to find peer-reviewed or scholarly sources?
Article databases make it easy by limiting results to peer-reviewed.Ulrich’s makes it easy to verify if an article you have found is in a peer-reviewed journal.
Even though distinguishing peer-reviewed articles from popular articles may be easy, the goal here is developing a strong understanding and appreciation of the differences between types of materials.
Summing up the most important points: • Scholarly (peer-reviewed) sources are written by experts in their fields • Scholarly (peer-reviewed) sources have been evaluated and approved by another person (or persons) knowledgeable in that field • Is a source appropriate for academic research? Determining if it is scholarly or peer-reviewed is the best way to answer that question.