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MIST/ENGR 175-01 (Yeo/Byun, Spring 2025)

Scholarly vs Popular Chart

View this chart from the UC Merced Library to determine if an article is scholarly or popular.

Scholarly, Trade, & Popular Articles (Video on Types of Sources)

University of West Florida, John C. Pace Library, 4:53

The video begins by describing three categories of articles—scholarly, trade, and popular—and lists their respective audiences, authors, purposes, writing styles, inclusion or lack of references, and other notable features. It also goes over a little of the publication cycle. Start the video at 0:03, and end it at 4:24 to skip over the library specific branding and contact information. It might not be best in a guide because of the branding, but there could always be a note about ending the video early or noting how our information is different, etc. This might be good to watch in a class session.

  1. What kinds of articles are there?
  2. What is a scholarly article?
  3. What is a trade article?
  4. What is a popular article?
  5. What kind of article takes the shortest amount of time to publish? The longest?

Types of Sources - Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary (Video Tutorial)

Check out this short video (2:23) from Suffolk County Community College Library to understand how primary, secondary, and tertiary sources vary by discipline. Beyond definitions of source types, this video provides useful examples of what would be primary, secondary and tertiary sources for research questions in different disciplines.