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MESA Teachers' Research Guide

Tutorials, graphics, and images to support information literacy

Engineering Librarian & CAPLA Liaison

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Paula C Johnson
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Information Literacy Tutorials

Know Your Sources

If you are unsure whether your sources are popular or scholarly, practice your skills with this tutorial: 

Did you know that scholarly articles have many standard sections? 

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article  This tutorial breaks down all the parts of a scholarly article. Depending on the type of research and content area, scholarly articles may include: citation, abstract, author credentials, introduction, literature review, methods, charts, graphs, images, discussion, conclusion, and references. 

Image of Anatomy of a Scholarly Article tutorial

Quick Tips for Evaluating Resources

Evaluate resources: author, audience, publisher, purpose

Remember: Doing research in the sciences isn't about finding the results that best match your thesis; it is about finding the facts.

Scientific research takes time and, in many cases, is measuring very specific variables. Exploratory studies usually need confirmation from further research. In addition, the media may misrepresent "conclusions." With this in mind, drawing concrete conclusions from only one study and citing news sources in your work can be problematic.

To help you better understand and cite the science:

  • Find the original study or source
  • Scrutinize who conducted the study and if it is biased
  • Look at the sample size of a study
  • Distinguish what type of study was conducted

From: https://sarahlawrence.libguides.com/EvaluatingSources

Use the graphic below to help you learn to quickly scan scholarly articles to find what might be most useful to your research:

process for reading scholarly articles

Indiana University East Library