Finding Research Articles

A primary source in the area of CDIS are original research reports (written and oral) and original case studies. In CDIS primary sources are generally published in academic journals or conference proceedings. Secondary sources include websites, research reviews, and textbooks that describe the results of research reports or case studies. Secondary sources generally provide a summary or the main points of one or more primary sources.

Reading and citing the primary source, and not the secondary source, will ensure that the information that you include in your research paper is an accurate reflection of what the author of the primary source meant. Very often, secondary sources do not provide you with enough information to evaluate the quality of the primary source.

Not all articles are considered scholarly articles. Scholarly articles meet the following requirements:

1. Scholarly articles are written by an author or group of authors who are considered experts in the field. Do a Google search to determine if the authors of the article are considered to be experts in the field. When search determine if the authors work at a university, if the authors have published on this topic before, and if the authors have presented at conferences about this topic. If you have a difficult time finding information about all of the authors listed, this source may not be appropriate.

2. Scholarly articles are published in academic journals. An academic journal is a source that publishes primary and secondary sources on a specific topic or related to a particular discipline. Generally, articles published in academic journals are peer-reviewed. This means that other scientists or experts in the field determined that the article has scientific merit.

When searching for articles, you can generally select an option to show only "peer reviewed," "scholarly," or "referred" articles. If you need help determining how to limit your search results to scholarly articles, please ask a BGSU librarian.

3. Scholarly articles contain citations of other sources. A scholarly article will mention other research that has been done related to the topic and will provide a formal list of the sources used in the article at the end of the article. Non-scholarly articles may mention other sources but will not provide a formal list of other sources.

4. All pictures in scholarly article serve a purpose. Scholarly articles are very unlikely to contain clip art or full-color pictures that serve no purpose in the text. Images in scholarly articles are usually graphs showing trends in the data or images of the experimental set-up used in the study.

5. Scholarly articles generally follow a standard organization. Research articles are divided into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. If the paper does not have those sections or sections with similar headings, it is not a scholarly article.

A review article is an article that summarizes and organizes many research articles on a topic. A review article is considered a secondary source.

A review article may not provide you with enough information to include in your research paper. However, the reference list of a review article is a valuable tool to help you find more research articles. Look over the review article and determine which sources used in the review article are appropriate for your research paper. You can then search for those sources and use them in your research paper.

Some instructors will allow you to use a website as a source while other instructors will not allow you to use a website as a source. Not all websites are considered good sources. Remember, anyone can publish a website. Use the following guide to help you determine if the website offers quality content:

1. Does the website list an author? Is the author an expert in the field? Has the author published articles related to this topic? If the website does not list an author, it is probably not a reliable source. If the author has not published articles on the topic or you have a difficult time finding information about the author, the website is probably not a reliable source. If the author has published articles on the topic, it would be better for you to use the article instead of the website.

2. What is the date of publication of the web page? If the web page does not say when it was published, the information on the page may not be current and probably should be avoided.

3. Does the website contain a lot of advertisements? Are the advertisements not labeled as advertisements? In general, quality websites will not contain advertisements because they are funded and supported by universities or government sources.

4. What is the purpose of the website? The purpose of quality websites is to inform the reader. If the website is trying to persuade you to believe something, trying to sell you something, or has any motive besides educating, it is not a quality source.

5. Does the information on the website make sense? Check to see if you can find other sources that use information found on the website. It is likely that the information on the website is published elsewhere. If you cannot find the information anywhere else on the Internet it may not be true. A quality web page will contain sources to support the statements of the author or authors.

6. Can I trust the website the information is found on? If the website is from an organization you have never heard of or an organization you can find very little information about, it is not a quality website. Generally websites that end in .edu, .gov, .org, and .net are considered higher quality than websites that end in .com.

Always ask your instructor if they consider the website to be a quality website. When in doubt, it is safer to move on to a different source.

No. You should never use Wikipedia as a source. Articles on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone so there is no way to ensure the quality of the information on a Wikipedia page.