You will likely go through the search process a number of times, performing different searches with different keyword combinations, to address the different components of your topic.

TYPES OF SCHOLARLY SOURCES

Original Research Article - Most often published in peer reviewed journals, original research articles report on the findings of a scientist's work or experiment.  They will almost always include a description of how the research was done and what the results mean.

Review articles - Published in peer reviewed journals, but seek to synthesize and summarize the work of a particular sub-field, rather than report on new results. Can provide helpful background information. 

Editorials/Opinion/Commentary/Perspectives – An article expressing the author's view about a particular issue. These articles can be well researched and include a lot of citations to the peer reviewed literature, or simple items without citations, but are not themselves peer reviewed.

Brief Communications or News – Science news articles can be found in a wide variety of publications.  Popular newspapers and magazines, trade publications and scholarly publications can all have science news articles.  These articles often will refer to a recent study published as a primary research article. These articles are typically short and written in language a general audience can understand.

QUESTIONS TO ASK TO FIND OUT IF YOUR ARTICLE IS ORIGINAL, PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE

• Does the article have an abstract?
• Does the article have a materials and methods section?
• Are there references? Are they cited in the article?
• Who is the intended audience? How can you tell?
• What are the author’s/authors’ credentials and association?
• Does the article present original research or is it a review?
• Does the article indicate when it was submitted for publication and when it was accepted?

CLUES THE JOURNAL USES PEER REVIEW

One of the best places to find out if a journal is peer-reviewed is to go to the journal's website (just Google the journal title).

Most publishers have a website for a journal that tells you about the journal, how authors can submit an article, and what the process is for getting published.

On the journal's website, look for the link that says "information for authors," "instructions for authors," "submitting an article" or something similar. Then look for the term "peer-reviewed" in the description of the journal.

From, “BHS 110 Orientation: Types Of Scholarly Sources” by Oregon State University Libraries & Press, used under CC BY-NC 4.0. Information.

Table concept adapted from https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/scholarly-popular/.

Keyword and subject heading searching are both useful approaches to locating relevant sources. You may find that using a combination of keywords and subject headings brings you the most success. 

• keywords - words that describe the main concepts of your research 
  • for exp. ecosystem anthropocene, african american foodways, zora neale hurston folklore
• subject headings - controlled vocabulary that describe a topic and subtopic in a standardized, consistent way
  • for exp. social organization, folk literature, physical anthropology 
  • list of Library of Congress subject headings in anthropology (pdf)

Library of Congress (LC) subject heading classifications are most commonly used, however article databases, such a JSTOR, may use their own subject headings. Find subject headings by viewing the full details of the source, use the database's subject list/ thesaurus if available, or look to filter your search results by subject. 

• Worldcat & other library's catalogs
• Interlibrary Loan
• Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
• HathiTrust
• Internet Archive