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:
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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.
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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.
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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 Although generally written by experts, they are not considered scholarly because they are not peer-reviewed and do not focus on advancing new knowledge discovery or reporting research results.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
