Scholarly Journals and Current Events/Popular Magazines
“My professor says our journal articles must be from peer-reviewed and scholarly journal sources. Is this article from one of those journals?”
Your professor is the best person to consider a journal source “scholarly” and “peer-reviewed.” On a case-by-case basis, your professor can help you the most. Look up a title in Ulrich’s Periodical Directory and view the display Y/N for peer-reviewed status. Here are some general overall guidelines when you have an article to examine:
| Current Events/Popular Magazines | Scholarly Journals (may be Peer-Reviewed or Refereed) |
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| Purpose | Communicate general information on a broad topic, current events coverage, and latest news | Report on original research or experimentation, sometimes on specific details of a topic, and with clinical or professional objectivity |
| Audience | General public, or people in the field needing current events coverage | Scholars and students examining current research in the field |
| Article Acceptance Procedure | Articles written by reporters, edited by magazine editors, and published | Often undergo a “review” process — must be read and reviewed by a group of researchers and scholars in the field before being published, to establish the validity of the work — this process may be called “peer review” or “refereeing” |
| Current Events/Popular Magazines | Scholarly Journals (may be Peer-Reviewed or Refereed) |
|
| Overall Appearance | Typically glossy paper, advertisements, illustrations (pictures) | Usually sober and serious, may contain graphs or charts, no/few glossy pages or photographs |
| Authors | Generally reporters (… the author may not sign the work with credentials…) | Generally scholars and researchers in the field (… sometimes signs the work and lists credentials, institute or educational affiliations, current research …) |
| Bibliography | Usually does not contain a bibliography or references | A bibliography or references page is often found with the article, either as footnotes or at the end |