|
Popular
and Scholarly Sources
Many of the assignments for your courses may ask you
to use specific sources or types of sources such as popular magazine
articles or scholarly or professional journal articles. There are some
basic ways that you can identify these types of periodicals.
|
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 the History of Ideas, College English, Antiquity, 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. |
|