¶ … absorb them and regurgitate them at face value. To the contrary, part of conducting research is scrutinizing our research sources to determine their scholarly credibility. The importance of this ability is demonstrated in the discussion here, which considers two articles which are drawn from scholarly journals but which differ considerably in their scholarly credentials. A study by Anderson & Keller (2002), published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research, concerns the therapeutic implications of smoking cessation. The primary objective of the study by Anderson & Keller is to draw a direct correlation between the transtheoretical model of health behavior and the variables associated with smoking cessation. The purpose is to promote an improvement of existing smoking cessation programs by finding ways to hone in on determinant independent variables. The transtheoretical model employed in the study is important to our discussion because, as the researchers acknowledge, this is a commonly employed mode to altering health behaviors where smoking...

Anderson & Keller describe the transtheoretical model of behavior change, explaining that "five stages of change represent a temporal dimension that provides a means to understand when a change in attitude toward a problem behavior occurs." (p. 282)
Here, the researchers have applied a proven theoretical framework to a sample population. The result is an empirical study which indicates that there is valid evidence that can be replicated in real-world conditions employing transtheoretical strategies of therapy to help change health behaviors relating to smoking. This applicability underscore the scholarly legitimacy of the research endeavor and findings produced by the selected journal article.

By contrast, we consider an article that offers a compelling case, that is well-reasoned but that is not necessarily scholarly in nature. An article by Mohammed Motahari Farimani, published in a 2007 issue of Journal of Religion & Science, offers an interesting qualitative examination of the subject of human cloning. This article…