Researchers often publish their research in articles. One reason for this is that they want to reach out with their research as soon as possible. The articles are often published in academic journals, or in conference proceedings. You can search for academic articles in different places, for example in the library's search engine Onesearch or in Google Scholar. In many search engines and databases, you can limit the search result to things that have been peer-reviewed. If you do this it is still important to evaluate the article to make sure that it is scholarly, since this function is not foolproof.

Academic journals have committees of experts, or referees, who review the quality of the articles before they can be published. After the review process is over and the article has been approved, it is said to have been peer-reviewed. It is rarely mentioned in the article itself that it has been peer-reviewed. If you want to make sure that a journal is academic, and want to see how the peer review process is done for that specific journal, you can find this information at the journal's webpage (often under a menu titled Editorial board).

Most academic journals are written in English since researchers want to reach out with their research to as many people as possible. Therefore it is important to search in English when looking for scholarly information for your assignment, regardless of your native language.

IMRaD (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion)

Another way to determine if the text in front of you is scholarly is to look at the disposition of the text, how it is structured. Journal articles often follow the commonly used academic template IMRaD, which dictates that the text contains the following sections. Note that journal articles don't have to have these exact headlines, but the text should contain sections that cover these aspects.

Introduction

Here the aim and research question of the text should be presented, along with eventual restrictions, as well as an introduction and background of the topic.

Method

The qualitative or quantitative methods used to conduct the study will be described in this section. The reader should be able to see and review how the researcher came to the conclusions they did, and therefore it is important that the method is described in as much detail as possible.

Results

The result of the study is described. Even aspects that where negative or unexpected should be mentioned.

Discussion

Here the results of the study should be discussed, things such as relations and generalisations, but also weak points, lack of relations, and exceptions.

References

In a journal article there should also be a lot of references, both in-text as well as a correctly formatted reference list at the end. If you find an interesting article that lacks references, you can therefore not use it as a scholarly resource in your work.

Academic articles can sometimes be difficult to read. Here is a video from The Hongkong Polytechnic University with tips on how to read academic articles efficiently (5.21 min):

Can a bachelor or masters essay following the IMRaD template be considered scholarly?

An essay is very similar to a scholarly text in many ways, but it does not count as scholarly material since it was made with the aim of education. Therefore, you cannot use an essay as a scholarly resource.