Academic vs Non-Academic Information

Oqo nai vosavosa e dau tauci vua e dua e yacovi koya e dua
na ka e ca, ka kainaki vua ni sa sauti koya ga na nonai valavala.*

You will reap what you sow.

Essential resources - feeling less prepared

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The difference between academic vs. non-academic information

Optional resources - when you have time

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What is meant by peer-reviewed or scholarly information

What is a "peer reviewed" or "scholarly" source of information?

Watch this one minute video by Arizona State University Librarian Anali Perry. It explains what a "peer reviewed" or "scholarly" article means. These are academic sources of information.

[ASU Libraries, 6 years ago]

So, peer reviewed, or scholarly, articles, have been evaluated, edited and shaped by academic peers who are experts in their fields of study and who are impartial (they are not being paid to tell you a certain opinion). Peer reviewed (scholarly) articles will mostly be found in academic journals. Most of these academic articles and journals will not be easy to access or even find searching on Google, or Wikipedia.

For your postgrad study, the majority of sources of information that you get your ideas from should be from peer reviewed (scholarly) sources. This means you will need to know where to go to find these peer reviewed (scholarly) articles and journals.

Where can you find peer reviewed sources of information?

One place you can start with straight away is with Google Scholar. Go to your web browser (Chrome, Mozilla, Safari...), and if you normally search for information on Google, instead type in "Google Scholar" in to the search area.

It should lead you to a different search engine, Google Scholar, that looks similar to Google (but it is actually quite different). Visit: https://scholar.google.co.nz/

Google Scholar is one place to start.

It is also really important to learn about the Library databases that you can use from the University of Auckland's Libraries and Learning Services website.

For more on this, visit the page in Section three called: Searching for Information. In it you will be introduced to how the Library databases allow you to access a huge volume of appropriate, relevant scholarly (academic) articles that will be necessary for your postgrad study.

To access these databases you will need to have a UOA Username and Password.

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Extra resources - for more indepth knowledge

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What is meant by grey literature

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This page relates to the following questions from the PG Poutama STEPPS Reflective Questionnaire:

Q15: I understand the difference between academic and non-academic articles.

*A Fijian proverb.

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Next, for an overview of some of the tools to use when searching for appropriate sources of information in postgraduate progrogrammes in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, visit the Philson Library's "Where to search" online pages.