Scholarly v. Popular*
What are they? Scholarly or peer-reviewed journal articles are written by scholars or professionals who are experts in their fields. Popular sources aim to inform a wide audience about issues of interest and are much more informal in tone and scope.
Why do we care? Evidence. You want to base your writing and arguments on the best available evidence. While both types of sources contain credible information, scholarly articles (usually) provide the best evidence for the authors' claims (through high-quality citations and the peer-review process).
How do you know which is which?
| [Criteria] |
Scholarly |
Popular |
| Contents |
research projects, methodology, and theory |
personalities, news, and general interest articles |
| Audience |
specialized |
general |
| Authors |
subject experts |
journalists and generalists |
| Affiliation |
academic institutions |
staff or freelance writers |
| Topics |
highly focused, geared towards researchers, professionals, and experts |
more generalized, geared towards nonprofessionals and nonexperts |
| Review Process |
peer-reviewed (usually) |
edited but not peer-reviewed |
| References |
bibliographies/footnotes |
no bibliographies, embedded links |
| Appearance |
many have dull covers, may have tables and graphs |
glossy, eye-catching covers, photographs and other colorful images |
| Advertisements |
few or none |
many |
| Examples |
Journal of Food Science, Urban Studies, Journal of Applied Psychology, Annals of Human Genetics |
People, New York Times, Psychology Today, Sports Illustrated |
*Types of Periodicals - Periodical is a generic term used for magazines and scholarly journals. They are materials that are published at regular intervals (monthly, quarterly, daily, etc.).
