Scholarly Journal vs. Popular Magazine

Periodicals

What is a Periodical?

Periodicals are published on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.

Periodicals can be:

News & popular magazines

Newspapers Professional trade

journals Scholarly journals Sensational press

Popular Magazines

Popular Magazines

What does it look like? Attractive and glossy

with many graphics and ads.

Who is the Author? Staff or freelance

writer; sometimes a well-known person who isn’t necessarily an expert in the field.

Popular Magazines

Who is the audience? General Audience

Who is the publisher? Commercial Publishers

What is the purpose? To entertain to sell,

and/or to promote a viewpoint

Popular Magazines

Is it cited? Rarely cites sources.

What are some examples of Popular Magazines?

Scholarly Journals

Scholarly Journals

What does it look like? Plain, white pages. Contains few pictures

and ads. Includes in-depth

scholarly articles that are usually several pages long.

Uses technical and specialized language.

Scholarly Journals Who is the Author?

Scholars, researchers, and experts in the field.

Who is the Audience? Written for a specific

audience. Scholars, Academics,

and Students in the field of study.

Scholarly Journals

Who is the publisher? Usually a professional

association.

What is the purpose? To share one’s original

research or experimentation with other scholars.

Scholarly Journals

Is it cited? Yes. Includes footnotes

and bibliography.footnotes

Scholarly Journals

Names of Scholarly Journals includes any of the following words: Annals Journals Proceedings Quarterly Review Studies Survey Transactions

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly articles can cover a wide variety of topics.

They may be original papers that describe empirical studies and their results, or a literature review on a topic, or they may explore a subject in detail.

Scholarly Articles

A typical scholarly article will include some or all of the following features:

Written by an expert or a researcher in the field.

Peer reviewed by one or more experts in the field.

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly articles will contain: An abstract or a

brief summary of its main points.

An introduction, methodology, discussion or results, and conclusion.

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly articles will contain: Graphs and charts

and/or much math.

A lengthy bibliography with a long list of sources.

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly articles will contain: Advance and

technical vocabulary.

A brief biography of the author.

Scholarly Articles

How do you identify a scholarly article from a citation? Includes one or

more authors.

Articles are lengthy, at least six pages long.

Scholarly Articles

How do you identify a scholarly article from a citation? Pages are

consecutively numbered throughout the year.

Article title may be long and describe the main points of the article.

Scholarly Articles

Where can I find a scholarly article?

Scholarly articles can be found in the databases accessible through the library’s website.

Scholarly Articles

Some subject-specific databases contain mostly scholarly publications.

Some databases allow you to limit your search to scholarly articles.

The End