BIOL 1400: Introduction to Ecology and Evolution (Tebbitt)

You are required to use scholarly and non-scholarly sources in your research in this and other classes. It is important for you to have a good handle on how to identify a scholarly article when you see one. 

This activity will help with that. 

Please work with a partner on this.

Open the articles linked below and compare/contrast them using the following characteristics and criteria (you do NOT need to read the entire articles, just scan through them and skim a few sections):

Authors: Can you determine anything about their expertise or credentials?

Content level: Does it show evidence of scientific research? Can you tell if it's written for the general public, professionals in the field, or other scholars? 

Layout, organization: Is it divided into sections such as methodology, abstract, conclusions? What sorts of graphics are there?

Supporting evidence: Does it have citations to other sources? 

Article 1 - Towards Forest Conservation Planning

Article 2 - Building Networks and Sharing Resources to Save Tree Species

Are there any other criteria that you already use to determine the scholarliness of sources?

These are good databases for locating articles, books, and other sources in evolution and ecology.