Are books considered scholarly publications?
Answer
It depends. Just as periodicals can be scholarly or popular, books are also published with different audiences and purposes.
Popular books are written for a general audience and are usually intended to entertain, advise or persuade. Scholarly books are written for scholars, researchers, and students studying in the author's field, and are typically intended to share research findings and contribute to the ongoing scholarly conversation on a topic.
If you look inside a book or a book's record in the library catalog, you will see some clues.
Clues that you've found a scholarly book:
- References. One of the quickest things to check for: a list of cited sources (articles, books, reports, etc. that the author referred to throughout the text) at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book.
- Expert author. Scholarly books are written by people with advanced degrees in their field (M.S., Ph.D., etc.), and typically with years of experience working with the subject that they're writing about. How can you find out? Use a search engine like Google to find more information on the author(s). Many researchers will be associated with a university, government agency or other institution; see if you can find a webpage for the book's author that provides information about their credentials and experience.
- Academic or Scholarly Publisher. A university press is usually a safe bet, like Columbia University Press or Oxford University Press, as each university ensures that the books published under its name are of high quality. There are lots of other publishers out there, too, that publish scholarly books like Rowman & Littlefield, Sage, or Guilford. You wouldn't necessarily know this by reading the publisher's name, so it's helpful to use a search engine to do a quick search to see if they are a scholarly or academic publisher.
- Discipline-specific language. Because the intended audience of scholarly books are other experts in the field, the author will use the specialized terminology of their field (and often won't stop to define these words and phrases, as the intended readers will know them already). Scholarly books will also be written in a formal tone.