Periodicals

Scholarly Journals, Popular Magazines, Trade Journals and Newspapers: What’s the Difference?

	Scholarly/Academic	Popular Magazines	Trade Journals	Newspapers

Author is usually...	Scholar in field, academic or researcher	Staff writer, journalist, often a generalist	Staff writer, journalist often with expertise in field	Staff writer, journalist
Credits sources?	Always many references and/or footnotes	Rarely cites sources, Original sources may be obscure	Rarely cites sources	Rarely cites sources
Structure of articles	Long (10+ page) articles with sections such as: Abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion	Brief articles, unless feature	Brief articles, unless feature	Brief articles, unless feature
Look & Feel...	"looks like a book." No color, no ads even in online versions	Glossy, graphics, full page advertisements even online versions	Glossy, graphics, advertisements, many are large format or online	Newsprint or online
Finding these types of articles: Databases to Use	General topics: Gale PowerSearch - Choose More Search options -> peer reviewed More specialized: JSTOR, ScienceDirect and Web of Science, EBSCOhost Research Databases are a few more.	Gale PowerSearch - scan for shorter articles, or look at magazine titles.	EBSCO Business Source Premier See more specialized trade databases such as IEEEXplore.	LEXIS®-NEXIS® Academic and other news databases.

Beware of Book Reviews

Book reviews often appear in scholarly journals, although they provide a critical review of a book, they may not meet your professor's requirements of using a scholarly work. Check the Library Catalog to find the actual book that's been reviewed.

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Last modified: Sep 30, 2009, 08:50 EDT