While the spirit of this assignment is likely to source and evaluate a scientific journal article, the prompt mentions that we might use a book on our shelves. In this case, I realized on my first site visit that, after all these years working in the woods, I do not know anything about fern identification! Therefore, I borrowed a field guide from our Forest Service office, and will dissect its suitability as a source of information. The time for checking journal articles for credibility will come throughout the rest of the project – a process which I recall well from writing an undergraduate thesis in engineering. I digress.
A. Source Citation
Vitt, D. H., Marsh, J. E., & Bovey, R. B. (1988). Horsetails, Club Mosses and Ferns – Their Structure and Biology. In D. H. Vitt, J. E. Marsh, & R. B. Bovey, Mosses Lichens & Ferns of Northwest North America (pp. 256 – 275). Edmonton, AB, Canada: Lone Pine Publishing.
This source is a photographic field guide. Its ISBN number is 0-919433-41-3 (Canada).
B. Source Classification
This is an academic, peer-reviewed, textbook. It may be classified as both research and review.
C. Qualifying the Classification
While a field guide feels more like a textbook than a research source, the amount of sample collection required to compile such a large volume of species necessitated an entire sub-section about collection, preservation, and study. This section, which may be considered a methods section, is located in the first chapter of the book, “Introduction.” In this section, the authors detail collection steps and materials used, such as plywood for a fern press, or KOH solution for a chemical approach to lichen identification. Because the paper has this methods section, and the results are the hundreds of identifications which follow, it may be considered a research book, even if it lacks a hypothesis. That said, not all samples required collection; therefore, it may also be considered an academic review as well.
Its authors are clearly academic, according to the summary on the back of the book. D. H. Vitt was a professor of botany at University of Alberta; J.E. Marsh, a lichenologist. R. B. Bovey was an editor and writer at the time. While the book does not have a “reviewed by” section, in the acknowledgements section, it thanks several botanists for their suggestions, along with colleagues and former students. In lieu of an official “peer-reviewed” designation, this acknowledgement, along with the book’s publisher, Lone Pine Publishing (a publisher of several other field guides and scientific literature), suggests that the source is trustworthy.