Group Exercise

For today's exercise, we will be using Jamboard to brainstorm characteristics of scholarly articles and books. Use the sticky note icon to add your ideas to the board.

Group 1 (Students Whose Birthday is between January and June) 

Scholarly Articles

Briefly review the following examples of scholarly articles (Article 1, Article 2). In the following Jamboard, add your suggestions of what you would tell a fellow student to look for if they are trying to decide something is a scholarly article. 

Group 2 (Students Whose Birthday is between July and December)

Scholarly Books

Briefly review the following examples of scholarly books(Book 1, Book 2). In the following Jamboard, add your suggestions of what you would tell a fellow student to look for if they are trying to decide something is a scholarly book. 

A scholarly publication contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts. ... Many of these publications are also referred to as "peer-reviewed", academic or "refereed". They all mean essentially the same thing and refer to the editorial and publication process in which scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published.

LibrarySearch (search box on the Library homepage)

Strengths: Good for finding books and scholarly articles

Potential challenges: LibrarySearch contains not just books, but videos, magazines, and more. Be sure to use the limits to make your search manageable.

Useful limits:

• Available online - if you only want to see resources you can access electronically
• Peer reviewed - for articles that have been reviewed by other experts - this limit doesn't work perfectly, so be careful
• Resource type - books, book chapters, and articles might be helpful
• Subject - if you are not seeing resources focusing on a literary perspective, you can use this to limit to certain topics

Using LibrarySearch

The following video walks you through using LibrarySearch. To see a larger version of the video, click on the arrow in the top right corner.

Overview of Search Tips for LibrarySearch and MLA Bibliography

Use quotation marks "" to search for a particular phrase  e.g. "Indian Horse"

An asterisk (*) means I don't care how it ends  e.g. canad*

Use the Peer Reviewed limit (Warning: This limit is not perfect, so it is still your responsibility to ensure that the article you have chosen is appropriate for your assignment)

The advanced search option in these tools gives you a more user friendly way to build your search

AND between search words means you want them all to be included.

OR between search words means that either term will work.

Annotated Bibliography

• Consists of two parts: Citation + Annotation
  • Your citation will follow MLA style for a Works Cited List
  • Your annotation will consist of three to five sentences after the citation.

Your Annotation Should Cover

• The relevance of the source to your essay (What points or insights were found in this source?)
• Scholarly merit of the sources
  • Was the source written by a professor specializing in a subject related to your analysis?
  • Was it published in a peer reviewed journal?

Additional Resources

• Annotated bibliographies - OWL@Purdue

  Includes definition, samples and examples for APA, MLA and more

• Writing an annotated bibliography - University of Toronto

• Concordia University annotated bibliography guide

Link to MLA Class Exercise

MLA Citation Resources

• MRU guide to MLA style for academic work (2021-2022)

• MRU guide to formatting your MLA paper (2021-2022)

• Blank MLA template

• MLA style center

Additional Assistance with Citation

• You can make an appointment with Writing and Learning Services to get detailed help with the citations for your assignments.
• You can ask citation related questions via the Library's Chat service or book an appointment with Cari