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Research Essentials

Level up your researching, reading and writing skills with these essential tips and navigate your first university assignments.

What are scholarly sources?

Most university assignments require you to use a range of scholarly sources to support your claims, arguments and ideas. Scholarly sources are sources that:

  • Have been written by an expert or someone with authority on the subject;
  • Often use formal or technical language and are aimed at an academic audience;
  • Support claims with evidence, and provide references for any other sources consulted;
  • Are likely to be peer-reviewed (reviewed by other academics in the same field) and published by a reputable publisher (e.g. a university press).

Tip: Find peer reviewed articles quickly

•    Many scholarly databases, like Discovery,  have filter options to limit your search results to peer reviewed articles. 
•    Try a multi-disciplinary scholarly database that only includes peer reviewed sources, like Scopus or Web of Science.
•    Check if the journal the article was published in is scholarly or peer-reviewed, search for the journal name in Ulrichs Web Global Serials Directory.

Evaluating sources

Now that you've found your sources, how do you decide if they're relevant and trustworthy enough for your assignment? You can ask yourself the following questions:

Remember, for historic research, older material can still be relevant!

Still not sure if your information is trustworthy?

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