What is an Academic Resource and How to Find One

Academic resources are any extracurricular support for your academic work. This includes academic journals, online essay tutoring services such as Spires Online Essay Tutors, and other reliable, accurate, and valid sources. It is important to understand the types of sources that are acceptable in your field of study and how to find them. Academic journals are a great source of information. They publish accredited research articles by academics or experts in a discipline.

These articles go through a rigorous review process, often using a system called peer review, to ensure they are an authorized, valid, original, and significant contribution to the field of study. In some cases, it may be acceptable to use a non-academic source. However, these are special cases and are more common in some academic disciplines than in others. For academic courses and research project tasks, it is best to use academic or professional resources.

When looking for an academic source, it is important to check if the author currently works or has worked as an academic at a university. Additionally, you should look for sources that have gone through a peer-review process as this will ensure they are of higher quality and widely accepted in your field. The most important piece of advice that academics want to give to their first-year students is usually to use the library as the only source of reference for their essays and assignments until they have a solid understanding of the types and quality of sources that are acceptable to their discipline. In journalism and media studies, you may often have to consult media sources which are not academic sources.

It is also a good idea to check with your teacher or tutor first if they're okay with you using non-academic sources. In some cases, you may find the work of an academic published on a separate website such as their blog.

Paul Delaney
Paul Delaney

"Paul Delaney is Director at Content Ranked, a London-based digital marketing agency. He has been working in Education since the 1990s and has more than 15 years digital marketing experience in the sector.As Director at contentranked.com he focuses on SEO strategy for educational organisations; and Paul's expert team support clients with on-page, off-page and technical SEO. He is also Marketing Director at Seed Educational Consulting Ltd, a study abroad agency that helps African students study at university abroad. He has also held significant positions at multinational education brands, including Business Development Director at TUI Travel PLC, Area Manager at Eurocentres Foundation, and Sales Office Manager at OISE.Paul holds a postgraduate diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute, BA in Publishing from Edinburgh Napier University, and a RSA/Cambridge CELTA.Outside of Education Paul is experienced in event promotion, production, and performance in the music industry."