Discriminating Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Articles Scholarly articles represent written documents that add something of significance to an academic research field. The typical trademarks of a scholarly article are authorship by experts in an area of academic research and the inclusion of novel empirical evidence or analysis, but probably the most reliable criteria is publication in an academic journal utilizing a peer-review process to vet articles prior to publication.

Non-scholarly Articles

The article "Sexting in the Schoolyard" by Segool and Crespi (2011) represents an example of a non-scholarly article. The authors represent experts in their respective fields and one of them has been a coauthor on at least two research articles (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012). Although survey (empirical) data is presented in the article, including survey data that has gone through a peer-reviewed process prior to publication, the authors did not generate the data themselves. The journal in which the article is published is actually a newspaper for the National Association of School Psychologists, so only the editor(s) would be involved in determining whether the content would be of interest to its readers (Communique Online, n.d.). Publication therefore did not require peer review. In essence, this article represents an opinion piece by experts in the field, intended to provide a valuable, professional...

It cannot be considered a scholarly article though, probably because it does not add anything new to this field of research.
Scholarly Articles

A very similar article was published in the journal Gifted Child Today by Del Siegle (2010). The author is a regular contributor to academic peer-reviewed journals and therefore an expert in his field (ProQuest LLC., 2012). Siegle also presents empirical data in the article, but in a manner similar to that of Segool and Crespi (2011) it is not his own. Although the article 'feels' and reads like an opinion or summation piece, the journal Gifted Child Today requires submitted manuscripts to be peer-reviewed before publication (Prufrock Press, Inc., n.d.). This article was therefore put through a vetting process that required other experts in the same field to review the manuscript and give their approval before it could be published. Making it through a peer-review process is not trivial because the content of the manuscript is generally required to add something significant and novel to this field. In this case, Siegle brings together empirical research data, expert opinions, and current events to provide a contemporary review of this topic. In addition, he offers a set of guidelines to help parents and teachers to negotiate this difficult issue that probably represent a novel and/or important contribution to…