ENG 1000

Books (electronic or print)

Books can be a great starting point for research. Their coverage is broad and in depth. Use the Table of Contents at the front of the book to browse chapter content and the Index at the end to look up specific terms. eBooks have an additional feature called "search within" that allows you to search the full text of the book. Please note, it is acceptable to use a single relevant chapter from a book. You do not need to read the whole text.

Research (Scholarly) or Professional Articles

Scholarly research articles have been through the peer-review process. Simply put, peer-reviewed journals use experts to review articles before publication. This is a rigorous process that takes several months. Professional articles appear in trade journals. They are written by members of a particular profession for others of the same profession. Articles tend to be more narrow in scope, rather than giving a broad overview of a particular healthcare system, they will focus on one small aspect.

Determining if a Source is Scholarly - Information on finding scholarly sources from the University of Illinois Undergraduate Library.

Websites .edu, .org and .gov

Limit your results in Google search by using the limiter site:.

Example below: This search will only return results from website that end in .edu.

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.