Why Use Different Source Types?
Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Journals
- Scholarly Journals are written in an academic style by researchers who are experts in their field. These articles will give you detailed and in-depth research on a narrow topic.
Popular Magazines
- Magazine cover popular interests and current events. These articles will give you a general overview of a topic and an idea of the public opinion on the issue.
Newspapers
- Newspapers cover daily reporting and editorials. For topics about the Civil War it will be best to use historic articles written during the Civil War.
Limiting by Source Type
Limit results to scholarly journal articles in database searches by following the steps below.
- First, search library databases.
- Example: united states civil war AND (women OR female) AND (soldiers OR military)
(click on image to enlarge)

- Next, limit your results to "peer-reviewed" articles
- Note: this option is usually on the left or right-hand side of the result list. It may look like either of the following images (click to enlarge).
