Popular or non-scholarly articles are those published for a general audience. They are written to be read by the general public and typically do not require any specialized knowledge or study to understand.
These types of articles include magazines, newspapers, most government and non-government publications, and almost all websites and articles that have been published on the Internet, as well as most primary sources like speeches, diaries, raw statistics, and government documents. These can vary dramatically in their level of credibility.
Popular or non-scholarly articles can be accessed by taking the following steps:
Library
1. Using the Library OneSearch box on the library homepage, type in the keywords related to the topic you are researching and click search. Do not check the Limit to Scholarly/Peer Reviewed box.
2. From the results page, select the All Filters button beneath the search box near the top of the page. A new box will appear in the right portion of the screen. Locate the Source Type section. Then proceed to limit your results to popular or non-scholarly sources such as news and magazines. Then select apply.
Internet
Plenty of non-scholarly resources can be found on the Internet, including websites and articles. These can be accessed by doing a basic search within Google.
When searching for information on the Internet, you must think critically about the resources you find there since anyone can post anything on the Internet. You'll want to make sure that you evaluate every source of information to see if it is a reliable source.
To help determine the credibility of a source that you encounter on the Internet, please refer to the following resources:
If you still have questions you can chat in real-time with a librarian here.