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PSYCH 122 - Research Methods

Use this guide to complete your Psychology 122 research assignment

Popular, Substantive, and Scholarly Sources

Unless otherwise instructed by your teacher, you'll probably want to use a variety sources to help you gain a complete understanding of your topic. Sources of information generally fall within three categories. These categories are  Popular, Substantive, and Scholarly (or Peer Reviewed). To use them skillfully you need to be able to identify them and understand their differences.
 

Types of Information Scholarly, Substantive, and Popular Sources Scholarly Sources (example: journals like the New England Journal of Medicine) Produced by discipline experts and aimed at other experts Communicates specialized and discipline-specific information Often reporting original research and experimentation Some scholarly content is peer-reviewed Scholarly information is a great choice for college students, though it can be challenging to read and understand for the non-expert. Substantive Sources (example: newspapers of record like the New York Times) Produced by experts or journalists and geared toward an educated -- but not necessarily expert -- audience Communicates timely, credible information of general interest Fact-checked before publication Substantive information is a great choice for community college students because it is both credible and accessible Popular Sources (example: fun magazines like Men’s Health) Produced by journalists, staff and freelance writers, even AI; aimed at the general public Provides a broad overview of topics a general readership will find entertaining Great for identifying potential topic ideas and providing general introductions to topics If you want (or need) to use popular material for academic work, talk to your professor as you'll need to be sure to supplement it with articles from scholarly and substantive sources

 

Watch the brief video below for more information:

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Evaluating Sources: Is It Reliable?

Before you jump into hunting and gathering your information, be sure you know how not to be fooled by unreliable, false, or misleading information. It's not hard if you train yourself to ask some simple questions that will help you explain why a particular source is reliable and a good fit for your research project.

When you encounter any kind of source, consider... (CRAAP Test)

  1. Currency - When was it written? Has it been updated?
  2. Relevance - How is it relevant to your research? What is its scope?
  3. Authority - Who is the author? What is their point of view? 
  4. Accuracy - Has the source been reviewed? Did they cite their sources? Who did they cite?
  5. Purpose - Why was the source created? Who is the intended audience? Where was it published? In what medium?
For an in-depth guide to the CRAAP test, see our research guide, Evaluating Sources.

Evaluating AI Content:

  • Verify everything: AI output can sound confident, but these tools can make up (“hallucinate”) or misrepresent information, draw false conclusions, make major mistakes and generate fake sources 
  • AI doesn’t “understand” the way humans do; these models lack real-world experience and context, so they don’t easily handle irony, humor and complex metaphors 
  • Don’t just read AI-generated summaries; take time to read original articles and understand detailed points and context 
  • Be aware that many of today’s AI tools are trained on information up to a certain date and may not have access to recent events or new discoveries 
  • Challenge AI responses and require the AI to justify its output by citing sources and data 
  • Beware of biased AI output 
  • Guard against overreliance on AI; challenge yourself to learn and exercise your mental muscles

Finding Information to Help You Evaluate


To find out more about an author: 

Google the author's name or dig deeper in the library's biographical databases.

To find scholarly sources: 

When searching library article databases, look for a checkbox to narrow your results to Scholarly, Peer Reviewed or Peer Refereed publications.

To evaluate a source's critical reception: 

Check in the library's article databases to find reviews of the source in order to get a sense of how it was received in the popular and scholarly press.

To evaluate internet sources: 

The internet is a great place to find both scholarly and popular sources, but it's especially important to ask questions about authorship and publication when you're evaluating online resources. If it's unclear who exactly created or published certain works online, look for About pages on the site for more information about the authorship, or search for exact quotations from the text in Google (using quotation marks) to see if you can find other places where the work has been published.

To see what others say about your source, use lateral reading:

While applying the CRAAP Test to a website, that site isn't always the best place to answer questions concerning authority, accuracy, and point of view about itself. You can not always trust what an author or organization says about themselves, and there are sites that may look very professional and credible that are actually promoting a certain agenda or viewpoint. 

If you are unfamiliar with a online source, it is good practice to open a new tab and perform a search on the author and/or organization providing the source. This process is called Lateral Reading. In addition to reading "down" the webpage in order to evaluate it, you open additional tabs and read "across" multiple pages to determine what others are saying about your potential source. This helps you build the body of evidence needed to determine if the source is suitable for your research need or not.

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