You will often be asked to include scholarly, academic resources in your research. This ensures a high level of credibility, reliability, accuracy and quality in the literature you use to form the basis of your own research.
While resources can take many forms, peer-reviewed journal articles are recognised as providing the highest level of academic quality. This is because they go through a rigorous review process by other experts in the field before being published. This helps to ensure the research meets high standards of quality and accuracy and also the verification off the validity of the research findings.
Furthermore, these journal articles are usually the reports of original research that contributes new knowledge to the field, thus advancing the understanding of specific topics.
Other resources that, due to their reputation and/or unique nature, may be considered as academic and/or worthy of inclusion into your work, are things such as:
There are a number of frameworks you can follow to ensure the resource you are using is of high quality.
Two of the main ones we teach via our Library workshops are the CRAAP test (outlined below) and the kaupapa Māori-informed Rauru Whakarare Evaluation Framework (linked below the CRAAP test outline). Two other commonly used critical assessment methods are also linked below.
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These two critical appraisal tools are really handy for the critique of research, they outline what to look for and use a tick box approach for quick easy assessment.
It is all very well to use academic journals for your research, but not all journal articles are created equally. While the use of journal rankings and citation metrics is far from a perfect assessment of journal quality, it is a method that can used to assist with judging the quality of the journal. The main thing to watch out for (particularly when you are ready to publish your research) are predatory journals. Use the links below to find out more.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) have a rigorous process behind the indexing of their journals so checking whether a journal is indexed on DOAJ can be a way to check.
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals, covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social science and humanities.
Journalytics Academic search provides current information on the contact information, publication guidelines, review information, journal metrics & altmetrics, and circulation data for a large number of academic journals across 18 academic disciplines. The Predatory Reports integration identifies predatory publishers with exploitative operations. Please note that this database does not provide access to full-text journal articles.