Peer-Reviewed Articles - College Writing II - Beilin - Research Guides at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Scholarly Journals vs. Popular Magazines

When conducting research, scholars often rely on articles from scholarly journals rather than popular magazines. See the table below for a list of some differences that exist between these two types of resources.

Characteristics	Scholarly Journal	Popular Press
Appearance	Sober and serious May contain graphs or charts Will not find glossy pages or photographs	Attractive appearance Advertisements Heavily illustrated
Audience	Scholars and students	General audience
Authors	Scholars in the field of study	Reporters, usually not experts on the subject
Documentation	Sources cited in footnotes and/or bibliography	Sources not cited or cited informally
Purpose	Report results of original research or experimentation	Provide general information
Article Acceptance Procedure	Many scholarly journals are "refereed journals" - they undergo a process called "peer-review" where other scholars in the field examine the articles before being published.	Written by hired reporters, edited by magazine editors, and published.
Examples	American Journal of Psychology Journal of the American Medical Association American Quarterly	Huffington Post Time Magazine Slate.com

Reproduced from Duke University Libraries with permission under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-SA 3.0