How to identify academic resources

What will I learn in this tutorial?

This tutorial shows how to analyse a resource and decide whether it is appropriate to use as a reference in writing for academic assessment.

Staff and students of Monash University are given access to around 20,000 journal or periodical titles, both print and electronic. Electronic access via the world wide web is provided to the full text contents of about 10,000 titles. This access is provided generally via publishers who aggregate the contents of thousands of journals. Effectively, journal issues are dismembered and reassembled in huge databases. This makes for easier searching and identification of relevant material across a span of years. But, the absence of the customary navigation aids, eg. tables of contents for the issue, layout, fonts (unless .pdf), general look, feel, smell, etc, can make it difficult to guage the 'worthiness' of individual articles.

Academic writing is not confined to journals. Non-textbook academic sources such as monographs and books of edited readings may contribute to the development of your ideas. Occasionally, research literature may be found on the internet. Of course, the same evaluation criteria apply.

What do the terms mean?

academic: ...as in writing. Quality of a work which seeks to clarify, explain and extend concepts belonging to the topic and discipline. Features of academic works include any or all of the following: authoritative, formal, intellectual, learned, objective, original, reasoned, technical, theoretical
...as in employment. A scholar associated with a university.
scholarly: Synonomous with 'academic'
peer reviewed: Synonomous with 'refereed'. Peer review is a formal process whereby any article submitted to a journal or conference is sent to several established scholars in that field of study. These scholars may suggest improvements before deciding if the article should be published or included in the conference. It is a common practice in academic disciplines and some professions. Peer reviewed articles are authoritative because they have been judged, by specialists or experts within academic and/or industry fields to offer important insights/findings/knowledge about an issue/debate/discipline.
Peer review can be a lengthy process. Hence, peer reviewed commentary on current events may be difficult to locate. Papers published by Australian researchers average around 3% of international output*, so papers on a particular topic with an Australian emphasis may be difficult to locate. Note that there are many quite scholarly or academic journals and conferences that are not peer reviewed.
An adequate output of peer reviewed literature is a requirement for progression as an academic employee.
*extrapolated from: 'Science in Australia, 1997-2001'. (SCI-BYTES) Available: http://in-cites.com/research/2002/april_22_2002-1.html
primary sources: These could be, for example, Hansard, court documents, manuscripts, patents, etc. They are the record of someone who not only was there but was directly involved. An account from the frontline of a field of endeavour could be a valuable resource (eg. paper by company CEO, journalist on the ground in a war zone) but may not qualify as a scholarly resource. You may need to perform other checks to establish whether primary sources are acceptable, eg. ask the lecturer.
refereed: Synonomous with 'peer reviewed'

Scholarly journal v. Popular magazine

Sometimes lecturers insist students locate and use information only from scholarly or peer reviewed journals. If that is the case, use the databases to search the journals specified by the lecturer in the Unit Outline. Some of the Monash University Library databases allow searches to be limited to peer reviewed or refereed material. Use this function with caution as acceptable scholarly resources may be excluded. Remember, some quite scholarly journals and conferences are not peer reviewed. Also, even though a journal title has 'peer review' status, it does not mean that every piece of the publication will have been peer reviewed, eg., editorial opinion pieces, book reviews, short news articles, etc. This means that you need to carefully examine each article. Evaluating resources is a necessary part of the research process and a way for students to exercise critical thinking skills. Use this checklist to help determine whether a source is suitable.

Check journal peer review status

Note: Links on this page will open in a new browser window.

To establish definitively whether a particular journal title is peer reviewed or refereed the university uses the tools listed on the Recognised Journal Directories page of the Research Grants and Ethics Branch (RGEB) site. These are the lists the university uses to determine the quality of staff publication output when reporting to government. Funding to universities is allocated partly on the outcome of these measures.

ISI Citation Index (Thomson ISI): Follow the link to the Master Journal List to access the search function (title, title keyword, ISSN).
Register Refereed Journals, now closed, no longer maintained, last version 05 January 2006 (choose .rtf or .pdf): Was maintained by the Australian Government, Department of Education, Science and Training for Higher Education Research Data Collection purposes. Journals not listed in Ulrich's or ISI registers could be submitted for inclusion in the DEST Register of Refereed Journals. Evidence required that refereeing was the standard practice of the journal. Inclusion on the register meant the journal meets requirements.
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory (access requires Authcate): Search by journal title. If the journal is refereed or peer reviewed, this icon will appear beside the title. To see the list of all peer reviewed journals, view that section of the print copy of Ulrich's periodicals directory.

Why is a bibliography so important?

The bibliography enables the reader to trace the sources used by the writer and to review them in order to decide for themselves the validity of the conclusions presented. Sources that come from scholarly and peer reviewed publications would suggest that the article or conference paper is a worthy contribution to the body of knowledge in that field. This documentation of the evolution of ideas is a fundamental process in academic research.

Failure to acknowledge the source of ideas and passing them off as your own is 'plagiarism'. Plagiarism is defined as taking, using, and passing off as your own, the ideas or words of another. It is a very serious academic offence, and can result in your work being failed automatically. The best way to avoid it is to take careful notes of where you found your information, and to always acknowledge the work of others, ie. finish your own essays with a bibliography.

Bibliographies from books, articles and conference papers are a useful source of further references for a student to use when writing essays and theses.

Checklist

The more marks in the 'Yes' column, the more likely the article or paper is to be acceptable for academic purposes.

Analyse the references you locate	Yes	No
Check for:
Abstract? Academic articles usually start with an Abstract (summary) and end with a Reference list (Bibliography). The original print and then digitised version of an article may include an author provided abstract.(This is not always the same as the database providers abstract).
Reference list or bibliography? The reference list is usually extensive and may run to several pages. Is complete bibliographic information for all cited references provided?
Author affiliation and qualifications? Is the author affiliated to a university, eg. Professor? If so you may assume the journal has some academic credibility. Are the authors' academic qualifications listed, PhD, B.Sc, etc.? The authors' affiliation and qualifications may be found at the beginning of the article near the title or at the end of the article as an endnote. In a monograph of readings there may be a separate section with brief details on the contributors.
Appearance? Text based, minimal use of unnecessary illustration. Advertising is limited to scholarly or academic products and services, eg. an upcoming conference, new books in the discipline, etc.
Format? The body of the document is divided into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Reference List. Tables, figures and charts may be included. May contain in-text (footnote) references.
Voice? Uses technical language (jargon) and reports research. The language used is that of the discipline covered. The writer assumes some knowledge and background on the part of the reader.
Length? Academic articles are usually substantial, e.g. 10 or more pages.
Publisher? Often the publisher can give you a clue as to the academic status of the document. For example, are they a university, professional organisation or other recognised authority producing research? Is the journal from a large academic publishing house eg. Carfax, Sage, etc.
Recommendation? Is this from a journal title specified by the lecturer in the Unit Outline?

Examples

Sometimes lecturers tell students "don't use the internet" to do research. What they actually mean is - don't depend on search engines, like Google, Yahoo, etc, to find resources. To use the Monash Library effectively it is impossible to avoid using the internet! The examples here are accessed using web based technology and are acceptable academic sources.

The links in the examples will open in a new browser window. Some pages will require Authcate passwords.

Pitkin, R.M., Branagan, M.A., Burmeister, L.F. (1999) 'Accuracy of Data in Abstracts of Published Research Articles'. JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, v281(12), p.1110.
(An example of a very short but quite acceptable article from one of the databases. The content matter highlights how carefully research must be read)

Roberts, P. (1999) 'Scholarly Publishing, Peer Review and the Internet', First Monday, v4(4).
(An article from a published online only, peer reviewed journal)

Sahlman, W (1997) 'How to write a great business plan' Harvard Business Review, v75(5), pp.98-108.
(This reference does not provide a bibliography but is written by a professor of the Harvard Business School)

Zhou, L.(1994) 'Late Quaternary aeolianites, palaeosols and depositional environments on the Nepean Peninsula, Victoria, Australia', Quaternary science reviews, v13, pp.225-239.
(Example of a Library digitised academic article containing the classic features)

Databases

Several of the full text databases to which the Library subscribes include only peer-reviewed journals:

ACS publications (chemistry)
JSTOR (multidisciplinary archive)
Project MUSE (humanities)
ScienceDirect (sciences)
Wiley InterScience (business, education, sciences)

Many of the full text databases to which the Library subscribes include some scholarly and/or peer-reviewed journals:

Expanded Academic ASAP (multidisciplinary)
ProQuest (multidisciplinary)

Check very carefully that articles from Factiva meet the 'academic' criteria, eg. have a bibliography, etc. There is a wide variety of material in this database, much of it from newspapers and popular or trade journals which may not be acceptable sources.

A literature review conducted in preparation for an honours, masters or doctoral thesis would require exploration of a multitude of indexes (both print and electronic) and databases.

Summary

Literature that meets these criteria is often academic:

the publication is peer reviewed
the publication is published/edited by a university or scholarly society
the author of the article is from a university or scholarly society
the publication reports research
the publication contains a bibliography and references other works
the publication is written by more than one author
the paper was presented at a conference, particularly an international conference, and definitely if the papers were peer reviewed

Articles from these publications are often NOT academic:

newspapers
magazines and trade journals
newsletters
journals published weekly or more frequently (although significant exceptions include Nature, New Scientist and Science)
very short articles (eg one or two pages)
articles that have no bibliography

BUT, there are no absolute rules! Exercise critical judgement!

Links in this tutorial

The following significant pages were linked to in this tutorial:

Monash University Library Databases: http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/databases/
Monash University Plagiarism and Cheating Policy: http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/unisec/academicpolicies/policy/plagiarism.html
Recognised Journal Directories: http://www.monash.edu.au/resgrant/publications/journal.html
Science in Australia, 1997-2001: http://in-cites.com/research/2002/april_22_2002-1.html