Lesson 2:
Defining Research Needs

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Understand Your Assignment

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EWU Libraries

Resource Types

Scholarly Journals

Scholarly journals are key resources for academic assignments. Many times your professors will flat out tell you to use journal articles in your research.

The articles found in scholarly journals go through a "peer-review" process. In other words, the articles are checked by professors and other experts. The information is reliable and based on extensive research. A list of references (aka bibliography) is usually included at the end, so you can trace the origins of the writer's ideas. Scholarly journals take less time to publish than books, but the peer-review process is lengthy.

However, scholarly journals include information of academic interest, so they are not the best sources for general interest topics. Because the peer-review process is time-consuming, they do not include up-to-the minute news or current event information

Consider: Are scholarly journal articles useful resources for your topic? Why or why not?