I explained to a COMM student, Bryce, about Scholarly or academic sources, which include peer-reviewed articles, and are written by experts for other experts in the same area. They are considered to be very trustworthy sources. They aren't the best source for current information (that would be news sources) and the quality can vary (as with any other source, examine it!), but there's scholarly research available on many topics. It may be a complex article to read because it is not written with the general public in mind. Use our comprehensive search tool, SUMMON, to access them or else try ProQuest Central. See the front page of the SLCC Library for a search bar or the List of A to Z databases. A search bar is also in the Topics section in this guide
Peer reviewed articles have gone through a process where other researchers in the same area have reviewed the article before it was published. The reviewers look at things like how well the study was designed and presented, if the conclusions are supported by the evidence, and more. If there is an experiment, it is often tried out to verify it. This is done to support trust in published research. It's not always perfect, but it's an academic standard.
Here is an example of a scholarly article about the shrinking Great Salt Lake and the potential of toxic dust from it's exposed shore. I found it using SUMMON and filtering results to the more recent articles. It is from a journal called Atmospheric Environment.
Reuben Attah, Kamaljeet Kaur, Kevin D. Perry, Diego P. Fernandez, Kerry E. Kelly,
Assessing the oxidative potential of dust from great salt Lake, Atmospheric Environment,
Volume 336, 2024, 120728, ISSN 1352-2310,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120728. [An open access journal.]
