Scholarly Articles: How can I tell?

If you can't find an author affiliation or want to learn more about the authors and their credentials, here are some ways to do so:

• Search for the author on Google. Sometimes you can find a personal page about an individual. Many of the faculty members at OSU have a website that lists their credentials (education) and research.
• Do a search in one of the online databases to see what else the author has written. Is this person someone who published a lot in this field? For example, a search in the Academic Search Complete database for the author Sandra Hofferth shows the articles she has co-authored on a range of children's issues.
• Look up the institution. What kind of institution is it?  Is the author still affiliated with the institution?

Information about the author or authors can help you determine if an article is scholarly. In a research article, the authors will list their affiliation, usually with a university or research institution. In this example, the author's affiliation is shown on the first page of the article. In a research article, you will never have an anonymous author.

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