Scholarly articles are articles written by experts and researchers in a field of study to educate or share new discoveries and research. You can use scholarly articles to find out about new innovations, research methodologies, and to dive more deeply into understanding the themes and subtopics of your field of research.
Other names: Scholarly articles are sometimes also called peer-reviewed articles or academic articles. However, not all scholarly articles are peer reviewed.
If you are using a Libraries' database, use a filter to narrow your search to just scholarly articles. This is helpful if you do not want news or magazine articles to show up in your search results.
Some journals require articles to go through a peer review process before accepting it for publication. This means an article is reviewed by other experts in the field to check for accuracy and relevancy before a journal will publish it.
Many researchers consider peer review articles as a gold standard in research as they have already been evaluated by a panel of experts. Not all scholarly articles are peer reviewed and while both can be helpful to use in your research, you may need to evaluate scholarly articles for quality just like you would a news article before using it in your research project.
Try googling a journal's name. Many times the journal will mention if they require peer review in their about us, but you can also look at their submission criteria or article requirements to find out what process they use.
For example, this is on the about page for the Journal of Business:
"The Journal of Business (JoB) is a peer-reviewed journal with the focus on research articles and case studies in all academic fields of business discipline. The scope of the journal covers the broad range of areas related to business studies including interdisciplinary topics and newly developing areas of business. Submissions comprise research articles – both theoretical and empirical, case studies and reviews of the literature."
When you are searching in a database there may be other articles that you may come across that are not scholarly, but that can be helpful to you in other ways.
As the name implies, these articles fall into a sort of grey area, they aren't quite scholarly, but they also don't fit anywhere else. The types of articles you might find that fit into this category are:
Trade journals are also not the same as a scholarly journal, though they might be easy to confuse. Trade journals are written for professionals in a trade or industry and cover practical topics that impact their career. These articles are written more like news or magazine articles and are meant for working professionals to learn more about innovative technology, relevant news, and current events that impact their industry.
For example, say you decide to pursue a career in managing a fitness center or gym. A relevant trade journal for you would be National Fitness.
Because of the technical content and level of prior knowledge the author(s) expect their readers to have; being able to get the most out of a scholarly article is a skill that takes time and practice to get good at.
When you are looking for scholarly articles that fulfill your research needs it can be time consuming to read each one top to bottom to determine whether or not it is relevant to your project. Instead try reading the article out of order to determine whether or not a scholarly article is relevant to your project.
Start by reading a scholarly article in this order. If what you read sounds relevant, then move on to reading the next section. At any time if they article no longer meets your needs, stop reading and move on. Once you complete reading an article out of order, and you determine that it is relevant to your project, it can be helpful to read the article again from top to bottom and annotate your thoughts as you go.
Since many scholarly articles go through a peer review process, it can be quicker and easier to evaluate. However, there are still a few things to investigate before using a scholarly article in your research.
It can be helpful to google the author and publisher to see what you can find out about them.
Evaluating a source is to explore the source. You do not need to answer all the questions above each time you evaluate a source. Over time you will become familiar with well regarded journals and authors in your field. All research skills take practice, the more you use this skill the faster and better you will become at it.