To be able to determine if a text is scholarly, you need to know what a scholarly text consists of, how it is structured and what peer review is.

What is a scholarly text?

Scholarly texts are written by researchers to communicate research results to other researchers within the same field.

When you search for scholarly texts in Summon, you will find popular texts as well. In the table below, you can see how these texts differ from each other:

	*Scholarly*	Popular
Authors	Researchers, often affiliated with a university	Journalists or experts from working life
Language	Complex, follows academic writing style, includes discipline-specific jargon	Simple language, understandable by the general public
Structure of articles	Articles divided into specific sections (See IMRAD below)	A less defined_structure with fewer or no defined sections
Intended audience	Scholars, researchers, and advanced students	General public or those active in the industry
Sources	All sources mentioned in the text and in a bibliography	Rarely mentioned and not listed in a bibliography
Appearance	Plain and with the text in focus	Often glossy and colourful

You can use these differences to determine if a text is scholarly or not.

Which sections should be included in a scholarly text?

The IMRAD-model: I:introduction, M: methods/materials, R: results/references, A: abstract, D: discussion.

Scholarly texts have a structure where the problem formulation, research methods, theoretical framework, and results of the research are clearly divided into sections, usually with headings. An example of how scholarly texts may be structured is the IMRAD model. The headings may differ between texts, e.g. you can find the methods under the heading Qualitative interviews.

Introduction – contains the purpose of the research, the research question, and background information.

Methods / Materials – describes how the study was undertaken and how the empirical material was collected and analysed.

Results – a presentation of the results of the study in text, tables, and figures. It also includes negative and unexpected results.

References – a scholarly text will always present references to the materials used.

Abstract – a short summary of the content.

Discussion - contains arguments about principles, relationships, or generalisations supported by the study's results.

Example of how an article can be structured:

Retrieved 2019-10-09 from: https://www.cebma.org/faq/what-is-peer-review/ (Länkar till en externa sida.)

How are scholarly articles reviewed?

Scholarly texts usually undergo a review before publication. The most common type of review is called peer review. Peer review is a quality control carried out by researchers in the same subject area. Those reviewing an article can leave comments on any necessary changes, provide suggestions for improvements, or completely discourage publication.

Note, however, that even if you refine your search results in Summon to being peer reviewed, some texts will not be scholarly articles. The delimitation is based on journals that use peer review, but those journals can also contain reviews, editorial texts, and news articles.

TIP!

In the journal list of the library you can verify if a journal is peer reviewed. That information can be found on the journal´s web site as well.

From Taylor & Fracis : Peer review. Taylor & Francis is committed to peer-review integrity and upholdning highest standards of review.

Where can I find scholarly texts?

Scholarly articles are usually published in journals. To get access to the materials that the library subscribes to, use the search box for Summon on the library web site (don't forget to log in!) or the library links to databases and search engines (Links to an external site), like Google Scholar.