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Scholarly Resources

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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: July 22, 2002
Latest Update: July 22, 2002
E-Mail Icon jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Computer Access to Scholarly Resources

Teaching Essay Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individaul Authors, July 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

The Web is growing. There are dozens of resources now available to you free on the Web. Some of these resources can be used as scholarly references. But you must be careful to identify accurately the author of the article or the Web site and the qualifications that author has for presenting material that is deserving of scholarly recognition. And don't forget to check the date. The Web is cluttered with old sites that no one has ever updated or removed.

Traditionally, the way such scholarly quality is justified is through peer review. There are journals presented on the Web that do, indeed, use peer review. But you have to use your common sense in deciding whether even those sources will meet the qualifications expected by your reader or teacher. For example, in a political science class where you are discussing corporate governance as a political issue, and where your teacher has indicated his/her preference for traditional academic perspectives, it wouldn't be a good idea to quote Noam Chomsky's ideas on corporate governance, at least not without some balance accorded to the more conservative view points available.

That's why we're developing the left/right files for your convenience. With luck we'll get up left and right perspectives on most of these issues. And if you happen to be reviewing material for use with a teacher who thinks Noam Chomsky has some import things to say, it wouldn't be cool to ignore the left perspective in favor of your more traditional textbook. Especially if that teacher is a sociologist whose primary concern is social justice.

Most academic journal articles cannot be accessed free on the Web. But many of them can be accessed through your local university library. I know this means a trip to a research library, and I know that most of us are suffering from fast track overload anyway. But many of those journals make their tables of contents, and even brief abstracts, available on the Web. If you gater a list of articles you need, then one trip to the research library should permit you to gather them all at once. Be sure to take a disk, so you can save them to disk, so you can read them in peace later at home with your own computer. Maybe your schooll is too small to have an adequate research library. No problem. Check with your librarian to find out how you can get access to your local research library. And don't forget public libraries.

References