Level
Subject-oriented information
Subject-oriented information is specialist information on a given field of study. The content is geared towards practical applications and is written for professionals in the field. The use of language varies from simple to complex, but is always aimed at the professional field.
Examples of subject-oriented journals are City, Culture and Society and Nutrition and health.You can also make use of specialist databases such as Business Source Premier and Books 24/7.
Scholarly information
Scholarly information is published in scientific journals or books, often in English. The quality of these texts is always assessed by two or more members of the same academic discipline. This is known as peer review.
A scholarly article is always made up of the same structure:
- research question
- theoretical scope
- research method
- results
- conclusion
An scholarly publication also contains a bibliography (see Process: What is a bibliography?).
There are various databases containing scholarly and subject-oriented information. These may concern a specific field of study (PubMed for example), or they may be multidisciplinary (ScienceDirect for example). There are also freely accessible websites offering scholarly information – see Nice to know: NARCIS.
In addition to scholarly information, there is also ‘non-specialist’ information. This information is written for people who are not particularly specialised in a certain field of study. A journal such as The Economist would be an example. .
General information
General information is information on a wide variety of subjects, written for the general public. The language used is plain and resources are often not referenced.
Magazines such as Time magazine and websites such as http://www.bbc.com/news are aimed at the general public. This information can be used, but should be treated critically (see Select: Reliability).
