Identifying scholarly articles involves analysis of the article's content. The chart below is meant to help you in this process; however, any one criteria by itself may not indicate that an article is scholarly. For example, a 30 page photo spread in People about stars at the Academy Awards is not scholarly, even though it is long.
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Scholarly Journals |
Trade or Professional Magazines |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Length | Longer articles (often 10+ pages), providing in-depth analysis | Mid-length articles (often 2-8 pages), providing practical guidance | Shorter articles (often <1-5 pages), providing broader overviews |
| Author | An expert or specialist in the field (often a professor), name and credentials always provided | Usually someone working in the field, with hands-on experience; some staff writers | Usually a staff writer or a journalist, name and credentials often not provided |
| Language | Professional language, jargon, theoretical terms | Some jargon and technical terms | Non-technical language |
| Likely Audience | Scholarly readers (professors, researchers or students) | Other people working in the industry | Anyone |
| Advertisements | Few or none | Some -- products to sell to practitioners in that industry | Many -- products for the general public |
| Format/Structure | Usually structured, with likely sections: abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, bibliography | Sometimes has sub-sections for organization | No specific format or structure |
| Special Features | Illustrations that support the text, such as tables of statistics, graphs, maps, or photographs | Some illustrations; practical guidelines, best practices, lesson plans, how-to, or other hands-on direction | Glossy/color illustrations or graphics, usually for advertising purposes |
| Editors | Reviewed and critically evaluated by several editors. Often refereed or peer-reviewed by experts in the field. | Editorial board of other practitioners or professionals in the field, but no external peer review | Not evaluated by experts in the field, but by editors or other journalists on staff |
| Credits | Bibliography (works cited) and/or footnotes are always present to document research | Usually no formal bibliography, although references to other research are often mentioned in-text | No bibliography, although references to other research are sometimes mentioned in-text |
Be sure to critically evaluate resources to decide whether to use them for your research assignment! While you are deciding on a topic and narrowing its focus, you may collect resources that you don't use in the end.
Below is the CRAAP test list of criteria for deciding whether a resource is information you should use, which I have borrowed (for educational purposes only) from Meriam Library @ California State University, Chico. Some of the criteria apply only to web sites, but others can be applied to any resource. When evaluating websites, methods linked from Evaluating Internet Resources may provide additional useful guidance in determining the source, scope, currency, accuracy and bias of a website.
Evaluation Criteria
Currency: The timeliness of the information.
Relevance: The importance of the information for your needs.
Authority: The source of the information.
Accuracy: The reliability, truthfulness and correctness of the content.
Purpose: The reason the information exists.
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