Answered By: Anna Wigtil
Last Updated: Jul 16, 2019     Views: 384

A "scholarly source" is a book, article, etc. written for an expert audience. For example, an article in an academic journal would be considered scholarly, whereas an article from a newspaper or popular magazine would not. Scholarly sources usually have footnotes and a bibliography, showing the research the authors did while writing the article. They also often state which college or university the authors work for.

"Peer-reviewed" or "refereed" means that experts in the field have examined an article and found it to be accurate before it is published in a journal. Many, but not all, of the articles you will find in academic journals are peer-reviewed.

Many of the UNL Libraries' online resources contain scholarly and peer-reviewed sources. In some databases, you can use the advanced search options to limit your results to scholarly or peer-reviewed sources.

Below are some links to help you tell the difference between scholarly and popular articles.