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A scholarly books and journal articles are meant for an academic audience;. Popular sources are books, magazines, newspapers, and websites meant for a general audience. Trade and professional resources are meant for practicing artists, architects, designers, or business people.
Here are some ways to tell if an article is scholarly:
Much of the content that you find through the library is of a scholarly nature. To find scholarly articles, conduct research in a scholarly database such as JSTOR, or use "peer-reviewed" or "scholarly journals" limiters in databases such as ProQuest to refine search results to scholarly articles only.
According to the Society of American Archivists, a primary source is "Material that contains firsthand accounts of events and that was created contemporaneous to those events or later recalled by an eyewitness." (Check out Primary Sources on the Web: Finding, Evaluating, Using)
Students can obtain primary sources using a variety of methods:
Secondary sources are books, periodical articles, and other resources that interpret, analyze, represent, or discuss. Many resources can be considered either a primary source or a secondary source, depending on the context.