Databases allow you to search for peer-reviewed information sources. Peer-reviewed books and articles provide reliability and trustworthiness that you may not get from sources that you discover "in the wild" (in other words, on the internet through a web search).
This page explains why this assignment encourages you to use peer-reviewed sources, which are sometimes called scholarly or academic sources. Since this assignment allows you to use reliably empirical sources that aren't necessarily peer reviewed, we will describe what this means and where you could find such trustworthy sources.
Books and articles that aren't peer-reviewed may be acceptable as sources. However, exercise caution when using such sources for your assignment.
How do you determine if a non-academic source is reliable and empirical (and therefore appropriate for your assignment)? There are many ways to do this. Below, you will find videos that provide an overview on evaluating sources.
⚠️ If you have found a source that you would like to use for your annotated bibliography but are unsure if it is appropriate, please contact a librarian
Evaluating Sources by junie12e
https://vimeo.com/72665593
There are numerous options for locating sources that aren't peer reviewed. When considering these sources, it is important to evaluate them carefully.
Some sources, like library books written by qualified authors and published by recognizable publishing houses, are likely to be reliable. The same can be said about articles written by qualified authors and published by recognizable newspapers/magazines.
Books 📚
This search bar will allow you to look for books (and more) in the Harold L. Drimmer Library Catalog. If don't plan on visiting campus and want to borrow an ebook, select "ebook" from the drop-down menu to the left of the search bar. Like when searching a database, you need to use keywords and not full sentences. Insert "AND" between words to combine keywords. For example
pollution AND cities AND "air quality"
Articles 📰
These databases will allow you to search for newspaper articles. If you do not select peer-review as a filter option when searching a database like Academic Search Complete, you will also get newspaper and magazine articles in your search results.
Why does this assignment ask you to use peer-reviewed sources? Why are peer-reviewed sources important? What is peer-review? How do you know if a source is peer-reviewed? Watch the above video to learn about peer-review.
