Answered By Library Staff
Last Updated: Apr 12, 2024     Views: 179

"Scholarly" can have different meanings depending on the instructor's requirements. It usually means that the material (including books, not just articles!) is of an academic nature and was published for an audience in a particular field of study. You can learn more about the nuances here, but it is likely that your instructor wants you to find a peer reviewed article. 

Use the Library's Catalog: You can search the Discovery Catalog on the Library's homepage, then limit on the left side to "Articles" and "Peer-Reviewed." An icon of a person with a check mark will appear to identified peer-reviewed results (thought you will need to verify that the result is marked correctly -- sometimes even book reviews are tagged because they show up in a peer reviewed serial, though they are typically only edited pieces and not peer reviewed in the same sense). The Discovery Catalog searches a lot of our relevant databases all at once for us. 

Use the Library's online research databases to find scholarly and/or peer-reviewed journal articles:

1. From the library's homepage, go to Articles & Databases.
2. Select a database and use keywords to search for your topic.  A multi-disciplinary database collection, Academic Search Premier, is often a good starting point. 
3. Many databases allow you to limit the results to include ONLY peer-reviewed or scholarly articles with filter options.

You will be prompted to log into MyTCC before accessing the library databases.

Find more help with finding scholarly articles on the Find Articles page within the Composition II Research Guide, or schedule a research consultation with a librarian.