BIOL 1501 Principles of Biology 1 (Carlson)

Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost)
Articles in all subjects from scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers. An all-purpose database and often a good place to start.


ScienceDirect
Journal articles in the health and life sciences.

Science E-book Collection (Gale)
Selected ebooks on science topics from Gale.

Science (AAAS)

Online version of the journal Science published by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science).

MEDLINE/PubMed
PubMed contains citations to articles in MEDLINE and other sources. Selected full text articles available. Click the Find Full Text button with the Normandale logo to see if the full text of the article is available in another database.

Within the broad discourse of a field, there are many different kinds of sources. In academic writing, we usually divide sources into academic or scholarly sources, and popular sources. One central difference is that academic and scholarly sources go through a process called peer review, while popular sources do not.

 

Popular Sources

• Written by non-experts (usually journalists) for a general audience.
• Types of popular sources can include magazines, newspapers, books by non-experts published by popular presses, and websites. 
• Often fact-checked for accuracy but not edited or reviewed by experts before publication.
• No References section and few in-text references.
• Include advertising, lots of pictures, and look flashy and eye-catching.

Scholarly Sources

• Written by experts (usually professors or professionals) for an academic audience.
• Types of scholarly sources include academic journals, books by experts or from an academic or university publisher, conference presentations, and textbooks. 
• Contain in-text citations and have a References section.
• Have minimal or no advertising; look very plain.
• Scholarly sources = academic sources (both terms refer to the same thing).
• Academic articles also undergo peer review so they are also called peer-reviewed sources​.

What is peer review? Academic articles are reviewed by other professionals (peers in the field) before the article is published in a journal. If the article contains inaccurate information or does not meet high academic standards, it is either rejected or sent back to the authors for revision.  If returned for revision, the authors are allowed to revise and resubmit the article.  The revised article is only published when it passes a second review process



Within scholarly sources, there is also a distinction between primary sources and secondary sources. Within the sciences, this is offen the difference between original research and reviews. 


 

Primary Research

• Presents original research, such as experiments and clinical trials, conducted by the authors.
• Contains sections about methodology, materials, results, and discussion.
• Reviews the current knowledge of the research topic.
• Analyzes and interprets the original research presented by the authors.
• Explains the significance of the authors' research results.

Reviews/Secondary Sources

• Reviews and interprets original research published by other authors.
• A secondary source may review a single primary source, or summarize multiple different studies--these are called meta-analysis, systematic reviews, or literature reviews, depending on the type of summary.
• Usually does not include a detailed materials and methods section.