Academic articles provide you with in-depth, research-based information about a topic. These articles are often very specific. They are written by experts, for experts, so they can be challenging to read as beginning researchers.
Even though they can be challenging to read, scholarly, academic, peer reviewed articles are an important part of academic writing. When you talk with friends about a topic of shared interest, their ideas can help you think of new and different ways of looking at or doing something. The same thing happens in scholarly, academic research.
You can read existing academic articles and use these articles to
- Learn more about the research happening in your area of interest.
- Form a new research question.
- Learn about how research in your area of interest happens.
You can use MavScholar, the library's main database, to find scholarly articles for your assignments.