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Mat-Su College: Paramedical Technology

A guide for students taking PMED courses at Mat-Su College and other UAA campuses.

What is a scholarly article?

Experts in a field report the results of their research in "scholarly articles." "Scholarly" just means that experts are the target audience for these articles. 

Such articles are also called "peer-reviewed" because the authors peers -- other experts -- review them before publication.

There are good reasons to use scholarly articles in your paper. First, your professor might make you. Second, these articles are where you will find the newest, best information on a subject.

This page helps you find and identify scholarly PMED articles.

Where do I find scholarly articles?

Scholarly articles are typically not freely available on the open web. Instead, these articles are freely available in library databases. (Think of a database as a collection of articles.)

"Nursing and allied health" databases are good sources of paramedicine articles. Two really good nursing and allied health databases are

  • CINAHL Plus
  • Proquest Nursing & Allied Health Database

You might also consider using QuickSearch. QuickSearch is a tool that searches many databases at once. It gives up a lot of the unique features offered by individual databases, but does find many things quickly.

The Quicksearch, CINAHL and ProQuest Nursing tabs of this guide include links to these databases, plus tips on how to use them.

You can also find these databases (and more) by clicking the Databases link on the Mat-Su College library homepage:

MSC library homepage with Research Databases link highlighted

Then navigate down the alphabetical list until you find CINAHL or Proquest Nursing:

Screenshot showing CINAHL link in list of databases

Video: Scholarly articles in 3 minutes

How can I be sure an article is scholarly?

What does the title of the article look like?
Titles of scholarly articles are usually very clear. The tell you exactly what is in there. But that doesn't mean you will always understand the title. The title might have lots of big, scientific words.

The title might also have words like “study,” “survey,” or “analysis.” Here are some examples of scholarly article titles:

  • Attention bias for chocolate increases chocolate consumption—an attention bias modification study
  • Effects of preparation and cooking of folic acid-fortified foods on the availability of folic acid in a folate depletion/repletion rat model
  • Consequences of Cold-Ischemia Time on Primary Nonfunction and Patient and Graft Survival in Liver Transplantation: A Meta-Analysis

What is the name of the journal that this article is in?
Scholarly articles appear in what are called scholarly journals. These journals usually have names that have words like “Journal” or the names of academic disciplines. Here are some examples of scholarly publication titles:

  • Journal of Tropical Psychology
  • Aboriginal Policy Studies
  • Conflict Resolution Quarterly
  • Animal Behaviour

Who wrote it?
Scholarly articles are written by professors or researchers. The first page of a scholarly journal article will list the authors and their degrees and where they work. Articles without authors listed, or anonymous authors, are almost always not scholarly.

How is it organized?
Scholarly articles are usually (but not always) divided into labeled sections such as abstract, introduction, literature review (or background), methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

What does it look like?
It is very common for scholarly articles to have charts, graphs, and tables that display the statistical findings of their research. Scholarly articles typically will not have pictures unless these pictures demonstrate some important point.

Are there references?
Scholarly articles contain extensive citations, both in the body of the text and at the end of the article. Articles without citations are not scholarly.

How long is it?
Scholarly articles are always several pages long or longer. Many are over five pages, and some are even 30 or 40 pages long.

Still not sure if an article is scholarly?

There is another way to find out if an article is scholarly. We subscribe to a database called Ulrichsweb. It has information on journals and magazines. It will often say if a journal is scholarly.

In Ulrichsweb, search the name of the journal you want to check. In the search results, click on the name of a journal. The detailed record will say if the journal is "refereed" (peer-reviewed):

Ulricshweb Interface, with the "Refereed: Yes" area highlighted