This document provides an introduction to identifying scholarly and popular journal articles for college research. It defines scholarly/academic articles as being written by experts, peer-reviewed, and found in journals. Popular articles are for general audiences and found in magazines. Scholarly articles contain in-depth research, references, and bibliographies, while popular articles focus on entertainment. When researching, students should use library databases rather than open internet searches, as databases specialize in scholarly sources and ensure quality information.

1. Basic Library Instruction

2. Introduction
When you are doing research in college, your professors will specify that you use
scholarly journals, academic journals or peer-reviewed journals when writing to
support your ideas, your papers and projects.
This presentation/session will assist you in identifying:
1. Scholarly and Popular Journal Articles
2. Best research practices

3. What to Look For…
Taken from http://libraries.ucsd.edu/bmcl/dturnbow/bimm121-library-tutorial/player.html

4. Popular Articles
Popular articles are found in Magazines.They are used
to inform and entertain the general public. Examples
are:Time, Essence and Ebony

5. Scholarly Articles
Scholarly articles are found in Journals; sometimes referred to
as Academic articles or Peer-Reviewed articles.They are written
by experts and evaluated by other experts before they are
published through a process called peer-review. Examples are:
Journal of Folklore Research andTheYale Journal of Criticism

6. Review
Scholarly
Article
Academic
Article
Peer-Review
Article
THREE TERMS = SAME

7. Newspapers
Newspapers articles are not considered scholarly;
however, some have a reputation for being more
reliable than others

8. Popular, Scholarly…
What’s the difference?
Popular Magazine Scholarly Journal
Who reads them?
Who writes them?
What’s in them?
What do they look like?
What are they good for?
scholarly.JPG
magazine+billboard+.jpg
Worldmagazieonline.blogaspot.com

9. Who ReadsThem?
Popular Magazines Scholarly Journals
General Public Scholars & Experts

10. Who WritesThem?
Popular Magazines Scholarly Journals
Reporters, Journalists, Anyone Professionals,
Scholars, Experts

11. What’s inThem?
Popular Magazines Scholarly Journals
News, Entertainment,
General interest articles
In-depth Research,
Bibliographies,
References

12. What doThey Look Like?
Popular Magazines Scholarly Journals
Glossy Photos, Advertisements Dense text, Less
Advertisements

13. What areThey Good For?
Popular Magazines Scholarly Journals
Finding General Information
Current Research Findings,

14. Select Two Characteristics of a Scholarly Article
• A. Written by experts/scholars in the field
• B. Read by the general public
• C. Has bibliographies and references
• D. Reports on current events

15. Internet vs Library’s Database
Internet (Google)
Quick but not relevant
Anyone can publish
Questionable authority
May take a long time to get quality information
Less reliable
Databases
Less results but relevant
Specialize in scholarly sources
Quality Information
Easy to search
Identifiable authority

16. Evaluating Information on the Web Requires
Questioning
Is it Good Information? Apply the CRAAP Test!
Questions to consider…
When was the page last updated?
Does the information answer your questions?
Is the author an authority on the topic?
Is the information supported by evidence?
Is the information fact, opinion or propaganda?

17. Conducting Scholarly Research
In some Databases, you can use search limiters to find scholarly
journals
Others, such as OpposingViewpoints will group results into
categories by article type, including academic journals.
Limiter
Category

18. Finding a ScholarlyArticle in an EbscoHost
Database?
There are four steps:
1. Conduct your search.
2. In your results list, click on the title of the article you wish to
view.
3. Click on source.The source is name of the journal.
4. Look for peer-reviewed and it should say yes. If it does not
say yes, it is not scholarly

19. Steps 1-3
Step 1-conduct search
Step 2-click the title of the article
Step 3- click journal title

20. Final Step 4
Peer-review/ yes or no

21. Thank You!