| Scholarly or Professional Journals | |
Popular Magazines |
| Concerned with academic study or research. | |
Intended to provide general information or to entertain the reader. |
| Often published by universities, scholarly presses or professional associations. | |
Published by commercial firms. |
| Publication is supported by membership, with subscriptions to members and to academic or professional libraries. | |
Publication is supported by advertising and distributed through or newsstands subscriptions to individuals. |
| Most often published quarterly, occasionally monthly. | |
Most often published weekly or monthly. |
| Advertising, if any, is for scholarly publications or tools. | |
Heavy inclusion of advertisements for consumer products. |
| |
Examples of scholarly journals: | |
Examples of popular magazines: |
| Appalachian Journal | |
Car & Driver |
| JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Assoc. | |
National Geographic |
| Journal of Educational Psychology | |
People Magazine |
| Journal of Leisure Research | |
Rolling Stone |
| Journal of Southern History | |
Scientific American |
| The Musical Quarterly | |
Time |
| Perspectives in Religious Studies | |
Vogue |
| |
Articles in Scholarly or Professional Journals | |
Articles in Popular Magazines |
| Written by an expert in the field, with name and credentials provided. | |
The author is usually not part of the editorial staff. |
| Written by member of the editorial staff or a freelancer. | |
The article may not be signed. |
| Written for scholars or professionals. | |
Written for the general reader. |
| Articles are often peer-reviewed (reviewed and critically evaluated by experts in the field). | |
Articles are reviewed and accepted by the editorial staff of the publication. |
| Lengthy articles, often reporting original research, documented with footnotes, and often with a bibliography. | |
Articles tend to be shorter overviews, rarely footnoted or supplemented with a bibliography, but names of reports or research may be referred to in the article. |
| Articles tend to be structured and may include an abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, bibliography and/or works cited. | |
Do not generally follow a specific structure or format. |
| Language of articles is often technical or the jargon of the field, targeting a specific audience. | |
Language is non-technical for general readers and laypeople. |
| Illustrations are critical to the content, and usually consist of charts, graphs, tables, or photographs. | |
Heavily illustrated with glossy, color photographs for illustrations. |
| |
For more information on individual periodical titles, refer to Magazines for Libraries by William Katz. (Ready Reference R050 K19m 2000.) Brief abstracts provide information on various aspects of approximately 6000 periodical publications including its purpose, scope, and intended audience. |
For additional discussion on periodical publications, see Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals from Cornell University Library and Scholarly Journals and Research Articles from the W. Frank Steely Library at Northern Kentucky University. |
