User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
A. The source of scientific information is a book entitled Practical Field Ecology: A Project Guide.
Wheater. C , Bell. James, Cook. Penny. (2011). Practical Field Ecology: A Project Guide. Wiley-Blackwell. West Sussex, UK.
B. The source is academic, non-peer reviewed material.
C. Following the tutorial for this module: ‘How to Evaluate Sources of Scientific Information’, The first step is determining if the material is academic. To determine this, the tutorial has 3 criteria, all must be true. 1) the source must be written by experts in their field. 2) the source must have in text citations. And 3) The source must have a reference or bibliography section.
It is written by 3 authors who are each experts in their respective fields. At the time the book was published, Wheater worked in the department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University; Bell specialized in Plant and Invertebrate Ecology with Rothamsted Research in the UK; and Cook worked in the Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. The book contains in text citations throughout and has a references section at the back. These three qualities make the book an academic source.
The next question to ask according to the tutorial is: was the material peer reviewed?
The acknowledgements section references many people who assisted in the writing of the book or participated in the required research in some way. However, there is no indication that it was peer reviewed with the possibility of being rejected prior to publication. The publisher does not claim that the book is peer reviewed either. The above points indicate the book is non-peer reviewed.
If the material were peer-reviewed, then the type of peer-reviewed material – research or review could be determined. As the source was not peer-reviewed, it cannot be research or review material.
