Academic sources can be difficut to identify. It is necessary to consider the following aspects for their effective use.

Publication time: current, modern, recent:

For a scholarly paper, the former should be (a) current (meaning within 5 years), (b) recent within 1-3 years maximum, or (c) at least not more than 10 years.

* Exception: outdated sources (more than 10 years) are allowed in papers on history or to support historical facts, or when such source is necessary to analyze or review.

Quality and reliability: support with references, no ads, professional target readers:

Scholarly sources include:

1) peer-reviewed journal articles;

2) governmental publications (websites with .gov);

3) books;

4) websites with .org and .edu without banners and advertisements.

5) they are usually supported by reliable references.

In contrast to academic and scholarly sources, popular publications that target the general public (not professionals in the field) include:

1) websites with .com and .net and advertising;

2) blogs;

3) Wikipedia, WikiHow, study.com, Quora;

4) in nursing, WebMD or Healthline websites are for ordinary people who seek advice, not for nursing professionals.

Peer-review

Peer-reviewed sources are articles in professional journals reviewed by experts in the same field as the author of the study. An important hing is that only journals offer a peer review, while books have only reviews or feedbacks from the general audience. Governmental publications are academic sources but they are not peer-reviewed.

An axample of a peer-reviewed article formatted in APA:

Kenney, E. L., Wintner, S., Lee, R. M., & Austin, J. B. (2017). Obesity prevention interventions in US public schools: Are schools using programs that promote weight stigma? Preventing Chronic Disease, 14, E142. doi: 10.5888/pcd14.160605

Database use:

* for checking publication information on books, worldcat.org is a useful database;

* for checking articles, Google Scholar is the most simple and accessible means;

* for professional sources in a certain field like nursing or medicine one can use CINAHL or PubMed, LexisNexis for law, JSTOR for multidisciplinary studies and so on.

Finally, remember that good sources are the basis of the reliability of research.