Another serious error is to assume that anything or anyone associated with a “research center” is producing independent scholarship. Quite the opposite. There are myriad numbers of think tanks, research centers, institutes and foundations that publish journals that appear scholarly, provide “fellows” for interviews with communicators who ask, write “briefing papers” and call news conferences to announce their “findings”, and otherwise mimic scholarly endeavors.
But their purpose is to advance a particular point of view, usually politically or socially aligned with one side of the opinion spectrum or the other, and they are perfectly willing to let you believe their work, publications and “fellows” are independently scholarly.
Don’t be fooled. These institutions have an agenda and are operating with a different set of standards and procedures than are legitimate scholarly institutions or scholars. Remember that true scholarly work is characterized by peer review of findings, independent authority to conclude what the findings and evidence support regardless of sponsorship or ideological concerns, and something called “academic freedom.”
Once again, asking how a particular research center or individual scholar’s work is funded and how their work is reviewed before publication is the best method for ferreting out these differences and nuances. If you want help determining whether a publication or journal is peer reviewed, you can also turn to an independent reviewing source such as Ulrich’s Periodical Directory, to help you determine whether a particular title is a popular, scholarly or trade publication.
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