Recognize the difference between a scholarly journal and a popular magazine
Understand the terms scholarly, refereed, and peer reviewed as applied to journals
Know when it is appropriate to use scholarly and popular materials

Journal publications are designed for different audiences and purposes. Journals may be divided into two categories, scholarly and popular. Scholarly journals are appropriate for academic research whereas popular magazines provide information for the general public.

Scholarly journals are usually published by academic presses, research institutions, or professional associations and have specific submission criteria. Articles submitted to scholarly publications are often reviewed by an independent panel of experts and are referred to as peer reviewed or refereed. Increasingly, general databases like Expanded Academic Index, Infotrac, and Wilson Omnifile allow the user to limit searches to peer reviewed articles or at least differentiate the popular from the scholarly resources in their databases.

Popular magazines often have a staff of writers hired to produce articles on timely, general interest topics. Articles are submitted to an editor who reviews the article for relevance to the magazine. Glossy photographs, provocative titles, and advertising are commonly found throughout each issue.

Here are the general differences between scholarly journals and popular magazines:

	Scholarly	Popular
Examples	Energy Policy, International Philosophical Quarterly; Journal of Cultural History	Time, Cosmopolitan
Purpose	Represents scholarly research	General Information and entertainment
Author	Experts and scholars in the field	Often no author is listed
Publisher	University, research press, professional association	Commercial publisher
References	Bibliographies and lists of references	Often no cited references

Examples

POPULAR MAGAZINES:

Many multidisciplinary indexes (e.g., Infotrac, Expanded Academic Index, and Wilson Omnifile) identify popular magazines and scholarly academic journals. Fortunately, these databases display results in separate categories making it easier to select popular or scholarly articles. For example, the following search for global warming in Infotrac yields the following results. The first tab displays popular magazine articles from Time, CosmoGirl, and House and Garden:

Infotrac Search

The first title, A Plan of Action has typical characteristics of a popular magazine article:

Scholarly Articles:

Scholarly articles may be located in multidisciplinary databases (e.g., Infotrac, Expanded Academic Index, and Wilson Omnifile). You may view the articles in the tab academic journals, or you may restrict your search to Peer Reviewed articles:

The first article, in the journal, Energy Policy, has the characteristics of a scholarly journal:

A list of references is located at the end of the article and the journals is published by Elsevier, an international scholarly science journal publisher.

Scholarly journal articles may also be identified by using scholarly subject databases. Here are a few examples of subject specific databases:

There are over 300 general and subject specific databases available in the Metalib list of databases. They may be searched individually or grouped by category (e.g., business, psychology, biology).

Related Links And Other Resources
Here are some related resources that you can use if you'd like to learn more about this particular topic.

Bowling Green State University Library, Research Guides, "Scholarly Journals, Popular Magazines, and Trade Publications." http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/period.html

John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library, Purdue University, Subject Guides. "What's the Difference? Journals and Magazines." http://www.lib.purdue.edu/ugrl/inst/difference.pdf

University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries, Subject Guides. "Scholarly Journals vs. Magazine Articles." http://www.lib.utsa.edu/Research/Subject/scholarlyguide.html

University of Washington Information Literacy Learning, The Basics. "Scholarly vs. Popular Communication" http://www.lib.washington.edu/uwill/research101/basic02.htm

Now it’s time to test what you’ve learned. Click here to test your knowledge. Be sure to print out your score or e-mail it to yourself or your instructor as proof that you have completed this tutorial.

Quaratiello, Arlene R. The College Student's Research Companion. NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 2000.

Virginia Commonwealth University Library. Getting Started with Your Research: Evaluate Your Resources. http://www.library.vcu.edu/help/evaluate.html

Caroline Thompson

cthompson@uwf.edu

April 2007