A scholarly text is written by a researcher to present the results of their research or to summarise the research of others. Depending on the subject within which research is being conducted, publishing is done in different ways. Within certain subject areas it is more common to have articles published, while publishing one’s findings in books is more common practice in other areas.

Scholarly articles and journals

In a scholarly article, one or more researchers write and present their research. A scholarly article is published in a scholarly journal. This means, among other things, that the articles are reviewed by other researchers. Such a review process is usually called peer review or refereeing.

Tips

Searching for scholarly articles

  • In most of the library’s databases, you can click on “Peer review” or “Scholarly Journals” to limit the search to peer-reviewed articles.

The best search engines for finding scholarly texts

I have found an article. How do I know if it is

scholarly?

  • A scholarly article often (but not always) contains these elements:
    an introductory summary (abstract), introduction, method, results, discussion, references.
  • Search for the journal’s name in Journals A-Z. Academic journals are labelled with “Peer Reviewed”.
  • Are you still unsure whether an article is scholarly? Follow the steps in our guide!

 

If you want to find a scholarly article or two quickly, Libsearch is an excellent place to start. Enter a search word or two and when you have done your search just check the box "Scholarly and peer review" in the menu. In this short film, we explain how you go about it in more detail!

Other types of scholarly texts

Research results can also be presented in other ways than in article form. These texts have also been reviewed by subject experts before being published.

A doctoral thesis is written by a doctoral student (PhD student) in order to obtain a doctoral degree. In the thesis, the author presents their own research, but also addresses previous research within the subject.

In the database SwePub you can search for a thesis published at Swedish Universities. Conduct a search on your topic and then click on the option "doctoral thesis" in the left menu.

Search in Swepub

 

A researcher can also publish their research results in a research report. A research report is often published by the higher education institution with which the researcher is affiliated, or sometimes by a government agency or an institute.

At conferences, researchers can present their research to colleagues. Sometimes, contributions from the conference are published. In English these are referred to as conference proceedings.

Researchers can also publish their research in a book (monograph) or in individual chapters of a compilation (anthology).