Journals & Periodicals: Identifying Scholarly Sources

Empirical research articles are the primary sources of the sciences: they report on new findings discovered by the authors.

These are what really power the growth and spread of new knowledge!

Research articles will generally have some version of the following headings. It can vary, so don't treat this list as all-inclusive!

Here's what to look for:

• Title
• Abstract (summary)
• Introduction/literature review
• Purpose of the study/hypothesis/problem statement
• Methodology/procedures/research design
• Major findings/results/analysis/discussion
• Summary/conclusion/ideas for future studies/implications
• Works cited/references/acknowledgements
• Notes
• Appendices
• Tables, charts, figures, statistical data (throughout the article)

Literature Review: this article was peer-reviewed, but it is a literature review. Notice that the subheadings used describe the topic of those sections rather than a portion of the experimental process. 

Newberg, A. B. (2011). Spirituality and the aging brain. Generations, 35(2), 83-91. [See the full article in JSTOR.]

Empirical Study: This peer-reviewed study clearly lists (in the abstract and throughout the paper) the intentions of the study, the methods, the results, and the conclusions.

Not pictured here: even though this is a report of original research, the authors still had a length list of References that used to support their research, just as a literature review would include a lengthy list of papers. Scholarship is a conversation!

Semiz, U. M., Basoglu, C., Ebrinc, S., & Cetin, M. (2008). Nightmare disorder, dream anxiety, and subjective sleep quality in patients with borderline personality disorder. Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 62(1), 48-55. [See the full article in EBSCO.]