Is This a Scholarly Article? Or Not? (SUNY New Paltz Sojourner Truth Library)
Scholarly and Popular Materials Guide (NC State University Libraries)
Professors often suggest that students include articles from scholarly, refereed, or peer-reviewed journals as resources for their research papers. These articles are authored by experts in their fields and reviewed by peers before getting accepted for publication. See the information below to help you distinguish between the three main types of periodicals.
Appearance: Highly visual, lots of advertising and photos.
Audience: General readership
Content: Popular magazines contain feature stories, reviews, and editorials, and may report research findings as news.
Articles:
Appearance: Sober design, little advertising, mostly text with some graphs and tables.
Audience: Students, researchers, scholars, specialists in a particular subject.
Content: Scholarly journals contain original research, theoretical issues, and new developments in the subject discipline.
Articles:
Appearance: Visual; some advertising related to the field, photos.
Audience: Members of a particular trade, profession or industry.
Content: Trade and professional journals contain news, trends, technical and practical aspects of the trade, profession or industry.
Articles:
Please note that not all articles found in magazines, or journals, will contain the noted characteristics. Use careful judgement in determining if an article in a scholarly journal actually presents in-depth, original research, or if an article in a magazine or trade journal goes beyond presenting news and current trends