 Now let's clarify some terminology. Let's talk about what scholarly or academic or peer-reviewed means. So you've been given a research assignment. My prof says I have to find scholarly sources. Why can't I just google it? I'm really good at googling. In university you will be expected to use scholarly research for most of your assignments. Information you find on the internet just won't cut it. Your professors will often ask you to find scholarly articles or books. Don't fret though, you can transform your googling and internet search skills into excellent research skills pretty quickly. What does scholarly even mean? Scholarly means that it has been researched and written by scholars using sound research or testing methods. Scholarly publications are authored by highly trained and knowledgeable scholars such as professors and researchers. They have an academic background in a field of study related to the articles they get published. There are scholarly books and scholarly articles. Scholarly books are often published by a university press. If it's unclear whether the publisher is academic or scholarly, those books also include information about the authors so you can check what their qualifications and credentials are. Often you'll be asked to find scholarly articles. These are typically found in scholarly journals which are similar to magazines in the sense that there are many issues published periodically but the majority of the content is research based, which is not the case with magazines. In many cases scholarly articles are peer reviewed. What does peer reviewed mean? Peer reviewed means that the article has been vetted by a group of scholars trained in the relevant subject area. They assess the accuracy of the research method used and comment on the article in general. If the article is accepted for publication, the feedback gets sent to the author who usually has to make some revisions to the article before it appears in the journal. Sometimes the term refereed is used to mean the same thing as peer reviewed.