Scholarly Resources are generally written for an academic audience by experts in a specific subject discipline.
IMPORTANT: **Usually when an instructor says you need scholarly sources, they mean peer-reviewed articles.**
Examples of Scholarly Resources include: Academic/peer-reviewed journal articles (most common), books written by experts in a field, and formally published encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Peer Reviewed Journals & Articles are evaluated by multiple experts in a journal’s subject discipline prior to publication. The peer-review process ensures that the articles published within peer-reviewed journals are academically rigorous and meet the required expectations of an article in that subject discipline.
Scholarly Journal Articles can be empirical, peer-reviewed, or both, or neither.
Academic or Scholarly Books can be empirical, peer-reviewed, or both, or neither. Neither is more common.
Reference Books are not empirical, rarely peer-reviewed, but many are scholarly.
Authors: Scholars, Researchers, or Experts in the Field
Audience: Researchers, Scholars, Students
Purpose: Inform, report and share original research and experimentation with the rest of the scholarly world
Content: Research results, methodology, and theory
Language: Terminology and language of the discipline, the reader is assumed to have a similar background
Articles: Lengthy, providing in-depth analysis
Review Process: Reviewed by a board of experts in the field or by the author’s peers (peer-reviewed)
Bibliography: References/ Bibliographies are always included. Bibliographies or endnotes are in a formal style.
Adapted with permission from Grand Canyon University Library.
Quantitative research refers to any research based on something that can be accurately and precisely measured and will include studies that have numerical data. Quantitative data are expressed numerically and analyzed statistically. The data are collected from experiments and tests, metrics, databases, and surveys. In healthcare research they often include studies of intervention effectiveness, satisfaction with care, the incidence, prevalence, and etiology of diseases, and the properties of measurement tools.
Findings in qualitative studies are not based on measurable statistics. Qualitative data are descriptive rather than numerical. Qualitative research derives data from observation, interviews, verbal interactions, or textual analyses and focuses on the meanings and interpretations of the participants. Qualitative research studies in healthcare investigate the impact of illnesses and interventions. The research explores experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives of patients, caregivers, and clinicians. The analysis of qualitative research is interpretative, subjective, and impressionistic.
Mixed methods research studies use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and data.
Reference: Kolaski, K., Logan, L. R., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2023). Guidance to best tools and practices for systematic reviews. Systematic Reviews, 12(1), 96. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-023-02255-9
Adapted from: Evidence-Based Practice Research in Nursing, Adelphi University Library.
An empirical or primary research article reports on the outcome of a study based on observation or experiment carried out by the author(s). Empirical articles can also be called primary or "original" research articles. These contain original data and the conclusions of the researchers involved in an experiment or study. Authors of a primary/empirical article or report are the same people who conducted the research and gathered the data discussed in that article/report. In other words, the authors must be writing about their own original research.
Examples of Empirical / Primary Research include: randomized control trials, cohort studies, and case control studies.
A review of the abstract and text of an article will provide important information of assistance in identifying it as a research study. The two main sections of a primary/empirical article are the Methodology (sometimes called the design) which describes how the study was carried out, and the Results (sometimes called the findings) which lays out and analyzes the data or observations which were found. Both quantitative and qualitative articles are empirical.
Secondary Sources/Secondary Research occurs when authors are collecting, analyzing, and discussing existing research and data (research studies conducted by others). NOTE: Most journal articles include a Background section or brief review of previous research done on the topic- this does not mean that article cannot be primary research. You will need to identify the type of study it is and/or look at the Methods/Methodology and Results sections to determine if an article is primary or secondary.
Examples of Secondary Sources/Secondary Research include: systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and clinical practice guidelines.
Look for the headings like the following:
Is it Primary/Empirical? It is important to be able to distinguish whether the author is reporting on the findings of their own study (empirical/primary/original research). If the author of the article is only conducting a literature review of other studies, or the article is a systematic review or meta-analysis, this is not a primary/empirical research study.
Adapted with permission from Grand Canyon University Library.
Informative articles are secondary (or tertiary) sources in which the authors of the article have not performed the research themselves, they are merely quoting, describing, or reporting findings of other studies. Informative articles often provide a broad overview of a topic or concept. While they may be found in scholarly/peer-reviewed journals, informative articles are more often found in trade journals or general interest magazines that are not peer-reviewed.
Informative Articles are not research studies and do not attempt to answer clinical research questions or generate scientific evidence, therefore they are not included in the Levels of Evidence.
Informative articles will often refer to research studies written by others to support their report on a given topic ("In recent studies conducted by both Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland . . ."). For example, an informative article may promote the benefits of drinking orange juice, while a primary research article might provide a first-hand report on a study that noted a correlation between orange juice consumption and the reduction of kidney stones.
Scoping Reviews are a method for "mapping" the full breadth and volume of evidence available in the research literature for a particular topic or concept. Scoping reviews will often clarify key definitions and concepts related to their topic, identify knowledge gaps in the literature, investigate research conduct and methodologies, and inform systematic reviews (Munn et al., 2018).
Narrative Reviews are non-systematic reviews that often provide a general overview, synthesis, and critique of the literature on a topic. Narrative reviews are subjective interpretations of the literature, may not include all relevant literature on the topic, and may be written to persuade their audience (Sukhera, 2022).
Munn, Z., Peters, M. D. J., Stern, C., Tufanaru, C., McArthur, A., & Aromataris, E. (2018). Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 18(1), Article 143. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x
Sukhera, J. (2022). Narrative reviews: Flexible, rigorous, and practical. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14(4), 414–417. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00480.1
Authors: Practitioners, Educators, or Specialists within the profession or trade
Audience: Professional in the fields, researchers, and students
Purpose: Provide information and news to practitioners in a profession
Content: New trends, techniques and organizational news
Language: Technical terminology of the profession
Articles: Length varies
Review Process: Includes some peer-review periodicals, most are reviewed by editors (often professionals in the field)
Bibliography: Occasionally cite sources
Authors: Reporters, Magazine staff, or Freelance Writers
Audience: General Public
Purpose: Inform, entertain, and cover special interests
Content: Personalities, news and general interest articles
Language: Non-technical
Articles: Brief, providing broad overviews
Review Process: No Formal peer review process, reviewed by editors on staff
Bibliography: Articles rarely include references