Scholarly books and articles list the works the author has cited, usually at the end. Books will sometimes provide a bibliography, often with a heading such as “For further reading.” These lists can provide additional reliable sources on your topic. For example, if you find one research article on your topic, you can use the article’s end-of-text citations to locate related research studies.
A particularly useful genre of scholarly article is a literature review, an article in which the writer surveys related studies on a topic—the literature in the field. The author identifies what is well understood, explains how the topic is broken down into subtopics, and discusses what questions remain.
Even popular sources such as news articles, videos, and interviews may alert you to additional relevant sources that may be worth tracking down. If you see a news story in a popular source or an abstract about a study, see if you can track down the original report or study with all its detail.
Determining if a source is scholarly
Tips for smart searching
Comparison of a scholarly vs. a popular source