A word on websites:
Websites that have general information are seldom scholarly. In other words, they are informational websites but not researched based.
ANA is not a scholarly website – it is an organizations website – often with good general information.
Nurses.com or government informational websites are general information.
Blogs should not be used, as they are generally opinions, satirical, and not based in research. If you find it on a blog, go find the research article the information came from.
Websites that are advertising something and wiki-anything are not scholarly.
However, websites can be valuable sources of general information when vetted properly. An example of valuable information from a non-scholarly website is one on a specialty nursing certification, such as CCRN specialty certification – http://www.aacn.org/wd/certifications/content/ccrnintro.pcms?menu=certification
Scholarly work (Peer Reviewed):
A scholarly journal will have authors that are researchers or subject experts with qualifications and affiliations posted.
Scholarly journals have an audience of scholars, experts, researchers, academics, and education. The content consist of original findings with results based on clearly stated methodology.
The content also contains analysis and discussion.
The language used in scholarly work is academic and complex, with discipline specific terminology.
There is an extensive editorial process with peer reviewers who are experts in the field of this work.
