SWK 6250 - Fall 2020

For this assignment, you will need to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles for the literature review portion of your paper.  This guide provides information and resources to finding social work databases, creating searches, and writing citations.

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Is it scholarly?

An article is typically considered scholarly if it has the following items:

• Abstract
  • Summarizes the articles content.
• Methods
  • Can also appear as Methodology, Research Methods, etc. This section describes the methods used by the authors to collect data.
• Findings
  • Can also appear as Data Analysis, Analysis, Results, etc. This section analyzes the collected data.
• Conclusion
  • A summary of the findings. 
• Reference List
• Author names and credentials
  • The author(s) list their credentials and affiliations.  Authors usually hold advanced degrees and are affiliated with a higher education or research institution.

Understanding Peer Review

The cornerstone of scholarly research is the peer review process. Articles are reviewed by experts prior to publication. These experts (peers) consider the validity of the author(s) methods, findings and conclusions.