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Scholarly or Popular? Tips on telling the difference!
Check out this guide to help you understand the differences between scholarly and popular journal sources:
Types of Periodicals
What is a periodical?
A periodical is a publication appearing at regular and fixed intervals of time (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even annually) under a distinctive title. Its contents are usually some mixture of articles, reviews, stories, or other writings by several contributors.
Source: Feather, John and Paul Sturges, eds. International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Why use periodical information?
Students engaging in college-level research are generally expected to make use of articles from periodicals because they contain current information. This is important for all disciplines, but especially for the sciences and the social sciences.
What kinds of periodicals are there, and why is it important to be able to tell the difference?
The quality and characteristics of the information found in periodicals varies. You will often be asked to find information from a particular type of periodical, for example, a refereed scholarly journal. The criteria in the table below will help you to judge for yourself what kind of periodical you have found.
Types of Periodicals — How to Tell the Difference
Note: The following are broad guidelines and should not be taken as “rules.”
| Popular Magazines | Professional, Trade, or Special Interest Periodicals | Scholarly/ Academic Journals (often “refereed” or "peer reviewed") | |
| Purpose | Designed to entertain or persuade readers with a variety of general interest topics in broad subject fields. Also geared to sell products and services through advertising. | Examine problems or concerns in a particular profession or industry. Provide specialized information to a wide, interested audience. | To inform, report, or make available original research or experimentation in a specific field or discipline to the rest of the scholarly world. |
| Audience | Educated but non-expert reader. Use simple language in order to meet minimum education level. | Practitioners of a particular profession, trade, or industry. Language appropriate for an educated readership and assumes a certain level of specialized knowledge. | Scholars and researchers in the field, discipline, or specialty. Language contains terminology/jargon of the discipline. Reader is assumed to have a scholarly background. |
| Title | May have “magazine” or popular words in the title, e.g. BusinessWoman Magazine, Mother Jones, People Weekly. | Sometimes has “news” in the title, e.g. Metal Construction News, AAUP News. Titles tend to be short and practical, e.g. Beverage World or Hotel Business. | May have “journal”, “bulletin”, or “review” in the title, e.g. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, International Review of Hydrobiology. |
| Frequency | Issued often – weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. | Issued often – weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. | Issued less often; quarterly, semi-annually or monthly. |
| Tone | Slick, glossy, attractive. | Slick, glossy, attractive. | Serious. |
| Layout/Design | Glossy paper, photos, illustrations, cartoons, sidebars. | Glossy paper, photos, illustrations, cartoons, sidebars. | Plain matte paper, tables, figures, charts. Little or no color or illustrations. |
| Advertising | Many ads for general consumer products and services. | Many ads for products and services related to a particular trade or industry. | Few or no ads. If any, they're for other journals or specific services or products. |
| Article Authors | Frequently one author. Often staff-written or written by freelance authors or guest contributors. | Frequently one author. Often staff-written or written by freelance authors, guest contributors or professionals in the field. | Scholars and researchers in the field, discipline, or specialty. Frequently has co-authors. |
| Article Titles | Popular or catchy-sounding article titles. | Straightforward article titles, sometimes popular and catchy-sounding. | Articles have a research-sounding title; nothing catchy, often long. |
| Article Abstracts | Articles do not have an abstract at the beginning. | Articles do not have an abstract at the beginning. | Articles often have an abstract at the beginning to summarize the article. |
| Article References | Usually do not cite sources. No references or bibliography at end of articles. | Usually do not cite sources. No references or bibliography at end of articles. | Sources for each article are cited in footnotes or bibliographies . |
| Article Length | Articles usually shorter. | Articles usually shorter. | Longer articles (more than three pages) including abstracts, footnotes. |
| Periodical Availability | Usually do not cite sources. No references or bibliography at end of articles. | Usually do not cite sources. No references or bibliography at end of articles. | Sources for each article are cited in footnotes or bibliographies . |
| Examples | Glamour, People Weekly, Reader’s Digest, Newsweek. | Beverage World, Restaurant News, Advertising Age. | Science, JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Assoc., Academy of Management Journal, Psychological Bulletin |