To search effectively online:
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Popular Journals (Magazines and Newspapers) |
Scholarly, Academic, or Peer-Reviewed Journals |
| Title | May have magazine or popular words in the title (Entertainment Weekly, BusinessWoman); popular or catchy titles | May have bulletin, journal, or review in the title (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Journal of Water Conservation); titles related to research or results, sometimes long and not catchy |
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Authors |
Reporters, journalists, staff-written. |
Researchers, scholars, professors in the field or specialty with university affiliations. Frequently multiple co-authors. |
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Purpose |
Inform, persuade, entertain with a variety of general interest topics in broad subject fields. Also geared to sell products through advertising. |
To inform or report original research in a specific field to the rest of the scholarly world. |
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Audience |
General public, uses simple language to meet minimum education levels. |
Researchers, experts, students in the field; readers are assumed to have a scholarly background |
| Availability | Can be found on a newsstand or in a book store or library; can sometimes be found online without subscription access | Not found on newsstand; requires subscription or library access |
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Writing Style and Vocabulary |
Simple, accessible writing and vocabulary |
Sophisticated, high-level writing; technical, discipline-specific vocabulary |
| Abstracts | None | Usually have an abstract at the beginning that summarizes the research |
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Sources |
Not cited; no bibliography |
Cited with footnotes or bibliography |
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Advertising |
Extensive |
Few to no ads; announcements for conferences, publications in the field |
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Graphics |
Photographs, glossy covers |
Plain covers; charts, tables, statistical data |
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Publishers |
Commercial, for-profit |
Professional society, university, or non-profit organization |
| Frequency of Publication | Frequent; weekly, biweekly, or monthly | Less frequent; monthly, quarterly, or semiannually |
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Peer-reviewed? |
No |
Yes, articles must meet rigorous standards and be reviewed by a panel of experts before being accepted for publication |
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Examples |
Time New York Times Sports Illustrated The Economist The Week |
New England Journal of Medicine International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Journal of African American History Pacific Historical Review Modern Fiction Studies |
Gathering information from a scholarly article is different from reading a popular article. Most of the time you do not need to read a scholarly article from start to finish in order to understand what it's about. On your first reading of the article, you just need to be concerned with whether the article contains information useful for your research. To do this, you should focus on the following:
There may be other parts of the article too, like a Methods or Results section. You will focus on those in later readings. You should read through an article more than once before before using it in your own research.
Reading through an article once allows you to understand the main ideas of the article. The second or third readings of the article should be in more detail, and are typically from start to finish. They will allow you to pull more details from the article and identify specific elements you'll use later to support your own paper or project. During these readings you should concentrate on the following questions: