What counts as a “Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly Article”? (Option A Focused Research Project)
Professor Sheryl Pearson helped me once captured this in a quick review:
- Your source article must be scholarly (addressed to other scholars, citing sources) and substantive (at least 10 pages long).
- Your source must be “peer-reviewed” which means it was fact-checked by a list of top research academics in their field. How do you know it was peer-reviewed? Check the journal’s website or copyright page/inside cover for an “Editorial Board” which lists each reader that had to read and fact-check the article before it was published. If you can’t determine whether it was peer-reviewed, then don’t use it.
- Your source must be published in a standard literary journal (peer-reviewed, by academics with university affiliations in English), not a journal in another discipline such as Psychology, History, or Sociology. Such literary journals are usually published by university presses. All are peer-reviewed. Don’t use a book review in a popular or general-audience periodical. Don’t use a chapter in a longer book, since the argument takes the whole book to unfold; however, you may use a stand-alone essay in an appropriate anthology of literary articles (by different scholars) on a given topic related to our course, as long as the article/essay directly and primarily focuses on one of the approved novels.
- Your source article should directly address any novel from the course in some advanced or specialized critical context.
Your source article must be accessible through one of the major literary databases (such as MLA, JSTOR, Proquest, etc.) You can find citations (and often “full-text” copies) through the Mardigian Library online databases
What counts as a “Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly Research”? (Option B Focused Research Project)
Professor Sheryl Pearson helped me once captured this in a quick review:
- Your source article must be scholarly (addressed to other scholars, citing sources)
- Your source must be “peer-reviewed” which means it was fact-checked by a list of top research academics in their field. How do you know it was peer-reviewed? Check the journal’s or book publisher’s website or copyright page, inside cover, or acknowledgements page for an “Editorial Board” which lists each reader that had to read and fact-check the article before it was published. If you can’t determine whether it was peer-reviewed, then don’t use it.
- Your source must be published in an academic book or a standard journal. All are peer-reviewed.
- Your source article must be accessible through one of the major literary databases (such as MLA, JSTOR, Proquest, etc.) You can find citations (and often “full-text” copies) through the Mardigian Library online databases
