Source criticism

Both written and spoken sources can be either primary- or secondary sources. Since sources can be more or less credible and current, it is always important to evaluate and criticise the source you are wanting to use. Who is the author/publisher? What is the purpose of the text? What type of material is it?

Academic publishing

Researchers communicate their research in different ways, for example in peer-reviewed journal articles. Other examples of scholarly material are conference proceedings, reports, dissertations, and books.

Journal articles

Publishing their studies in journal articles is one way for researchers to reach out with their research. In the articles, the readers can clearly see how the study was conducted, and how it came to its conclusions. Journal articles are often published in either academic journals or conference proceedings.

One important sign that something is a scholarly article is to check if it has been peer-reviewed by other researchers. The articles are often written in English and follow the IMRaD (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion) template.

Reading with magnifying glass by @joaosilas, CC0