Scholarly Journals vs Popular and Trade Magazines

Periodicals are magazines, journals and newspapers issued at regular intervals intended to continue indefinitely.

	Scholarly Journals	Popular Magazines	Trade Magazines
Audience	Scholars and students	General public	People working in a profession or industry
Purpose	Report original research/experimentation Content related to focused discipline	Provide general information, informs, entertain, advertise products.	Provide general information for members of that profession, keeping them up-to-date on trends, research, e.g. that affect their work.
Appearance	Usually, contains graphs or charts etc. Articles are lengthy & include abstracts Few color graphics, photographs or advertising	Glossy paper, advertisements, heavily illustrated-attractive in appearance.	Glossy paper, advertisements, heavily illustrated-attractive in appearance Short articles with broader overviews of topics
Language	Articles require specialized knowledge or vocabulary to be understood	Require no specialized knowledge or vocabulary to be understood
Documentation	Sources cited in footnotes or bibliography	Sources rarely cited.	Some sources sited in bibliographies
Authors	Scholars, experts in the field, a professional association or university	Freelance writers, reporters, feature editors or no author is listed	Members of the profession, feature editors, reporters
Authority	Editorial Board members often listed in the first pages of a journal issue
Peer-review/ Referee Process	Articles reviewed and critically evaluated by a group of experts in the field before articles are published in scholarly journals	Articles not evaluated by experts, but by editors or staff
Frequency	Published quarterly or twice a year	Published, daily, weekly or monthly	Published weekly or monthly
Sample Sources	The Journal of American Medical Association Journal of Negro History Social Work	Newsweek Prevention Psychology Today	Women’s Wear Daily Computer World Library Journal
Sample Databases	America: History and Life PsycInfo	Academic Search Premier Expanded Academic ASAP	ABI Inform Complete

Resources in the George Potter Library to consult for further explanations:

Ulriches’ International Periodicals Directory (online Database)

Magazines for Libraries (at Ready Reference)

Adapted from Arizona State University http://www.asu.edu/research/tutorials,

University of Texas at San Antonio http://www.lib.utsa.edu/Research/Subject &

University of Utah, J. Willard Marriot Library http://www.lib.utah.edu/ResGuides

Shirley Knight, Reference Librarian

Sknight@ramapo.edu

8/05

Designing Course Research Assignments

Last, spring I introduced to the FYS faculty in a PowerPoint presentation, the ACRL information literacy standards, preliminary information literacy competencies and further suggested tips on designing library research assignments. The ACRL IL Standards and library competencies have been excepted by CLA and is to be incorporated in all courses as pertain to the Middle States Accreditation.

I have developed these handouts for ease of use in incorporating these …. In your courses.