Photo from the Mexico City Anthropology Museum.
Use this guide to help familiarize yourself with doing research in Criminal Justice/Anthropology 325 and what library resources you can utilize in this class.
Some of the sites below give explanations and examples relating to the writing of scientific papers. These sites have been included here to provide some guidance to you as you write your paper for this class. The information and examples given in the web sites below were not created for your specific assignment. Always follow the guidelines given to you by your own professor. If questions arise during the writing of your paper, talk to your professor.
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 |
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
