While enrolled in this course you will write a research paper on a women's health topic. Your paper must include at least five scholarly sources published within the last ten years.
This guide contains information about how to find scholarly books and articles, how to cite your sources, and how to avoid plagiarism.
If you need help finding resources for your assignment, please feel free to use the chat box to the left or contact the Women's Studies Librarian via email.
There are several things you can look for to determine if the article you've found is scholarly:
Many scholarly articles go through a process called "peer review" before they are published. When an author submits a draft of their work to a journal, the journal's editor sends it to reviewers. These reviewers will be experts in the same field as the author. The reviewers read the draft, evaluate its scholarly rigor, make comments on how the work can be improved, and make a recommendation to the editor about whether the article should be published. The editor will then ask the author to make revisions and to re-submit the article. Only after this process is complete will the article be published.
Most of the time, you can't tell if an article has been peer reviewed just by looking at it. In order to determine if the article was peer reviewed, use your favorite search engine to find the journal's homepage. Then look for a peer review policy on their website.
In the course of writing your paper for this class, you'll come across medical terminology you probably don't understand. If you need a definition of a medical condition, procedure, test, or other term, consult one of these sources: