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Home > Research Help > General Research Help Topics > Using Scholarly Journals as Sources in Academic Papers
More often than not, you will be expected to use articles from scholarly journals (sometimes referred to as peer-reviewed or refereed journals) as sources for research papers. Here are some characteristics of scholarly journal articles that make them highly useful as sources for academic papers: - They're written by and for specialists in a particular field
- Articles must go through a peer review process before they're accepted for publication
- This is where original research, or new knowledge, is published for the first time
- These articles tend to have a narrower focus and more analysis of the topic than those in other types of publications
- There are usually cited references or footnotes at the end of research articles
A common way to find journal articles on your topic is to search article indexes. These can be printed indexes or online databases. Some provide the full text of articles; some provide just citations and abstracts. Here are just a few examples of databases that index articles in scholarly journals (these are available to JHU users only):  For more discipline-specific article databases, consult the lists of databases by subject.
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