Library Guides: TBUS 300 Managing People: Articles: Scholarly Sources

What is a scholarly source?

There are many different kinds of information available, and you'll probably find that more than one will make valuable contributions to your research. Keep in mind that each kind of source will have its own pros and cons. Your professor is asking you to use scholarly sources for your research assignment.

Scholarly articles

Articles such as those found in the Social and Cultural Geography, share original research and promote scholarly communication.
They are written by scholars with advanced knowledge in their fields for an audience of other scholars and students.
They and are often peer reviewed. This means that when the author finishes a draft of their article, other experts in that subject or field read it to confirm that their methods and interpretations of their data or analysis are accurate and sound.
These articles will have citations and full bibliographies of the works that they cite. Through these, you can see the conversation between different researchers on a topic.
This kind of information can take months of even years to be published. So, it is unlikely to find scholarly articles on events from the past 6-12 months.

Academic books and book chapters

Academic books may be authored by one researcher, or a group of scholars. They may also have an editor(s), and consist of many chapters authored by different scholars around the same or connected topics. These books or individual chapters share original research and promote scholarly communication.
They are written by scholars with advanced knowledge in their fields for an audience of other scholars and students.
They and are often peer reviewed. This means that when the author finishes a draft of their chapter or book, other experts in that subject or field read it to confirm that their methods and interpretations of their data or analysis are accurate and sound.
These books and chapters will have citations and full bibliographies of the works that they cite. Through these, you can see the conversation between different researchers on a topic.
This kind of information can take years to be published. So, it is unlikely to find scholarly books on events from the past 12 months.
When using academic books, it is likely that you will only be reading and citing 1-2 chapters (that is ok!).

Business Databases

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
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Magazines, newspapers and journals in all business disciplines.
Business Journals This link opens in a new window
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News from U.S. regional business newspapers, including the Puget Sound Business Journal and Book of Lists. Husky OnNet is required for off-campus access.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly articles and general interest sources in all fields.
US Newsstream This link opens in a new window
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Washington State, national & regional newspapers, 1980 - present

UW Libraries Search with Tips

Tips for Searching:

Once you've run a search, use the "Refine My Results" options on the left side of the page. It's a quick way to drill down to the most useful results without paging through a lot of items you're not really interested in. Options often include:

Resource type (examples: book, article)
Library (example: UW Tacoma)
Creation date
Language
Topic
Classification LCC (Library of Congress call numbers)

Peer-reviewed articles (also know as refereed) go through a process where they are analyzed by experts in a field before publication.

articles are examined to evaluate the quality of research
reviewers decide if the article adds to the content of the field

Articles can be scholarly (written and published for an academic audience), yet not go through the peer-review process.

Step 1: Check the peer review status of the JOURNAL.

Search for your title in Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory.

When you find your journal, look for a "referee shirt" symbol. The symbol will appear next to any journal title that is peer reviewed and/or refereed (interchangeable terms).

Step 2: If the JOURNAL is peer reviewed, then assess the ARTICLE.

Is it a full research article? If your article is a short news brief, an editorial, a letter to the editor, or a re-print of a conference proceeding, it is not peer reviewed.

Getting your Article

In most databases, if the full text of the article is not readily available, you will see a Check for Full Text button.

Clicking on the button will do one of the following:

a) take you to the article - look for PDF full text,
b) take you to the catalog - click on the link next to Content Available
c) link you to Interlibrary Loan so you can request a copy of the article.

There are several ways go about finding an article via the UW Libraries website. However, the process is easiest when you have the article's citation handy -- which identifies the article's full title, journal, and author name.

Start by searching the article title in quotes in UW Libraries Search.