Popular, Scholarly, & Trade Journals
Determining the difference among periodicals is much more difficult when the article is electronic and you cannot "browse" through the journal. If you are looking for a scholarly article, find the abstract (summary at the beginning of the article), authority (description of author and affiliaton), and citations (in-text, works cited, bibliography, references).
| Popular, News, Opinion | Trade | Scholarly | |
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| Author |
Journalists, freelance writers, commentators, sometimes anonymous |
Practictioners or specialists in field or industry or journalists with subject expertise | Researchers, scientists, scholars credentials listed |
| Audience | General public | Specific industry, trade, organization, or profession; trade jargon often used | Other scholars, professionals, or students familiar with the field |
| Purpose | Inform, entertain | To describe issues, problems, or trends in the field; product information, forecasts, statistics. | Report and share original research, experiments, theories; contribute to the body of knowledge about a particular subject |
| Are sources cited? | Sources may be cited or identified, but usually not or obscure | Practices vary; some cite sources and some do not | Authors cite their sources with in-text citations, in footnotes or bibliographies, often extensive |
| Peer-reviewed? | No. Editors look for grammar, errors, plagiarism | No. Similar to popular magazines. | Yes. Extensive peer-review process. |
| Abstract? | No | No, but there might be a summary | Yes. Summarizing paragraph before the article with the authors goals, objectives, results, and analysis. |
| Publisher | Commerical publisher | Commercial and trade publishers, professional associations | Professional organizations, universities, research institutes, scholarly presses |
| Appearance in print | Colorful, glossy cover, many ads for consumer products, illustrations, photos | Usually glossy; charts, tables, illustrations; ads related to profession or industry; each issues starts with a page 1 | Usually plain cover, no color; graphs, charts, tables and photographs relating to research; few ads; somber, serious |
| Terminology | Not technical, written for general audience, basic education | Uses jargon of the field | Uses technical vocabulary of the discipline; assumes college-educated reader with some knowledge of the subject |
| Examples | Newsweek; Rolling Stone, National Geographic | Advertising Age, Modern Machine Shop, Rapaport Diamond Report, Selvedge | Leonardo Music Journal, Journal of Modern Craft, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism |