Topics in History: American West: What is a Scholarly Source?

To be brief, a scholarly article is one that is written by experts in the field, for other experts in that field.

Determining whether an article is scholarly or not takes work- you have to review the article and look for key indicators:

• The author(s) are clearly marked and their affiliations are given.
• Information in the article contains proper citations, footnotes, and references.
• The article does not come from a popular magazine such as Newsweek, Time, or National Geographic.
• The language may be highly specialized and contain words that are unfamiliar to a general audience.

Some other differences between scholarly and popular articles:

• Scholarly articles tend to be long, often 10 or more pages in length.
• Most popular articles are written by journalists, not experts in the field, and will not provide full citations.

NOTE: Books reviews and letters to the editor are generally not considered scholarly articles, even when they are published in a scholarly journal.  Make sure you are not using a short book review or letter as a scholarly journal.