Popular and Scholarly Sources

Here is a comparison chart between popular magazines, and two types of journals.  Most often, when your instructors are asking you to find journal articles they are asking you to look at scholarly journals.

Type of Source Popular Magazines Trade Journals   Scholarly Journals
Examples
The Economist
Psychology Today
Time
National Geographic
Advertising Age
The CPA Journal
Billboard
American Libraries
Journal of Social Issues
Adolescence
Race, Gender & Class
Science
Audience
For the general public; use language understood by the average reader
For those in a particular trade or industry
For students, scholars, researchers; uses specialized vocabulary of the discipline
Content
May report research as news items, feature stories, editorials and opinion pieces
Reports on problems or issues in a particular industry
Reports original research, theory; may include an abstract
Appearance
Highly visual, a lot of advertising, color, photos, short articles with no bibliographies or references
Visual, contains advertising, color, photos,
Little or no advertising, has tables & charts, high concentration of print, lengthy articles, bibliographies & references
Authors
Author may not be named, frequently a staff writer, not a subject expert
Staff writers, freelance authors
Authors are specialists, articles are signed, & credentials such as degrees, university affiliation are often given.
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