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Doctor of Health Administration (DHA): Evaluating Sources

This guides provides research assistance for students enrolled in the DHA program

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Scholarly resources are, usually, the BEST sources to support your argument and/or support your claims. 
There are three main types of publications that may appear in your search results.  These are:
  • Scholarly sources -- intended for use in conducting in-depth research, often containing specialized vocabulary and extensive references to sources. The content has been reviewed by academic peers to ensure the reliability of the methods used and the validity of findings. Scholarly sources help answer the "So What?" question in academic writing and lay the foundation for discovering connections between variables, issues, or events.
  • Popular sources -- intended for a general audience of readers, they are written typically to entertain, inform, or persuade. Popular sources help you answer who, what, when, and where questions and are essential for finding information about current events or issues. Popular sources range from research-oriented [but lacking complete citations to sources] to special interest, agenda-driven publications.
  • Trade publications -- intended to share general news, trends, and opinions among practitioners in a certain industry or profession. Although generally written by experts, they are not considered scholarly because they are not peer-reviewed and do not focus on advancing new knowledge discovery or reporting research results. Trade journals, however, are an essential source of information in the field of business and specialized industries [e.g., tourism, environmental studies, agriculture, manufacturing, etc.].

 

**Adapted from USCLibraries Research Guide: Organizing your Social Sciences Research Paper, 2019 

Use the chart below to help you evaluate your source's publication type. 

 

 

 

**Conisius,College, A.L. Bouwhuis Library, Scholarly vs. Popular Resources, 2020

 
The most common structure for a research article follows the IMRAD acronym: Introduction, Methods, Results, & Discussion. 
Use the following graphic to help you determine if your source is a research article. 

** Clayton Bingham, 2018. Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California. 

 

Use the TRAAP acronym to help ensure that you are utilizing a scholarly or authoritative article.  

 

Timeliness
Is the date of the publication evident?
Is the currency of the information crucial to your research?
Reliable
Why is the information being provided?
Are sources cited?
Are charts, graphs, tables, and bibliographies included?
Are research claims documented?
Are conclusions based on evidence provided?
Authors
Are the author's names included?
Are the author's credentials provided?
Are the credentials relevant to the information provided?
Audience
Who is the intended audience?
Is the language geared towards the knowledge of the specific discipline or the general public?
Publishers
Who is the publisher?
Is the publisher an academic institution, scholarly, or professional organization?
Is their purpose for publishing the source evident? 
Even after you have found a scholarly article that follows TRAAP it can be hard to determine if it is quality medical/allied health research.  Ask yourself the following questions and use the infographic on the left to help you determine if it is quality research. 

 

  • Was the research well-conducted? 
  • Is the research question clearly stated?
  • Is there evidence of a clear search strategy of previous literature?
  • Is the study design appropriate?
  • Is it clear how the study population was sampled and is the sample representative?
  • How was the data collected?
  • What is the reliability and validity of the data collected?
  • Were confounding influences and biases considered?
  • Does the data justly the conclusions drawn?
  • Does the study add any new knowledge to the subject area
  • Has the work been published in a peer-reviewed journal?
  • Has the study obtained and followed ethical approvals and standards?

 

** Fawkes C, Ward E, Carnes D. (2015).  What evidence is good evidence? A Masterclass in critical appraisal.  International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, 18(2), 116-129. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijom.2015.01.002