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Writing 10 (Ayik) - Spring 2025

What to Look for in a Scholarly Article

Graphic showing characteristics of scholarly articles (longer, graphs, written by authorities, for experts, including jargon and references and abstract) and popular (shorter, has pictures, by journalists, for the public, easy to read, few or no references, no abstract)

Scholarly or Popular?

Scholarly articles (published in scholarly journals) are reviewed by experts before they are published.

  • Within scholarly journals, you may find different types of articles.  For example, you may be required to find a scholarly article that is an original research article.

Popular articles (published in newspapers, magazines, and other sources) are not reviewed by experts, but may be extensively researched and/or fact-checked, depending on the publication.

graphic identifying types of scholarly articles (original research, review, theoretical article) and types of popular articles (newspapers, magazines, government, trade publications, etc.)