What's in them?
The results of a study, experiment, or any other kind of disciplined scholarly research.
Who writes them?
Scholars: faculty, researchers, laboratory staff, and graduate students.
Helpful hint! Look for a University Affiliation in the author's bio in an article. If they work at a university or college, they're probably a scholarly author!
Who reads them?
Other researchers in the field, including students just learning about research and professors working on their own areas of study within the field.
When should you use them?
What do they look like?
What's in them?
Entertaining or generally informative articles about a variety of subjects.
Who writes them?
Journalists who have conducted interviews or research to learn about the topic, but who are not scholarly experts in the field.
Who reads them?
A general audience. The writing should not require specialized expertise to read.
When should you use them?
What do they look like?
Watch out: Popular magazines cover a lot of subjects, and can be formatted in a variety of ways. The tips listed above will not be true 100% of the time. Critical thinking about audience and authorship are important when trying to identify popular articles!
Peer Review: The process that scholarly articles must under go to be published. When an author submits their article to an academic or scholarly journal, it is then sent to other experts in their field (knows as their peers) to be reviewed. If those experts agree that the article contains good information and is based on a sound study or experiment, then it can be published.
This video from Coastal Carolina University's Kimbel Library link will open in a new window will help you learn to recognize scholarly articles.
Need a little extra help?