Bahasa Malaysia are published in non-peer-reviewed sources. 89% of articles on statelessness in both Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia are written in English. This shows the clear lack of academic research available on statelessness by peer-reviewed sources2 in both English and Bahasa Malaysia, highlighting the need to grow this body of research for policymakers and civil society members. Table 4: Breakdown of academic articles according to language, source type, and region Language English Bahasa Malaysia Peerreviewed Non-peerreviewed Peerreviewed Non-peerreviewed Total Peninsular Malaysia 8 10 0 2 20 East Malaysia 6 5 0 2 13 Total 14 15 0 4 33 Source Type Table 5: Breakdown of academic articles based on categories of statelessness in Peninsular Malaysia Categories of stateless populations Number of studies (1) Persons with long-standing residence since pre-independence and their descendants 4 (2) Abandoned children born in Malaysia 4 (3) Adopted children in Malaysia 3 (4) Children of ‘mixed’ marriages or alternative families; cases where children were born out of wedlock or before a marriage was registered 2 (5) Children born outside of Malaysia to Malaysian mothers and non-Malaysian fathers 0 2 Peer-reviewed research is written by experts and is reviewed by several other experts in the field before the article is published in the journal in order to ensure the article’s quality. Therefore, the article is more likely to be scientifically valid and reach reasonable conclusions, as compared to research published in non-peer-reviewed sources. 21