Popular vs Scholarly: Resources

Popular articles are from publications that are "popular" to the general public. They can be identified by the following characteristics:

• Articles about "hot topics"
• Color images or people, places, and things
• Common language
• Lack an author or citation information
• Short article length
• Written by journalist for the mass public

Scholarly articles are found in professional journals; they can be identified by the following characteristics:

• Articles related to professional studies in a particular field
• Author and citation information is displayed
• Long in length
• Images of statistics data, graphs, and charts
• Professional, technical, and scientific language and writing style
• Reviewed and written by professionals in the field

Undergraduate Research: It is important to know that popular and scholarly articles are good sources of information. When selecting articles think about the way you are going to use the content.

Popular: background research

Scholarly: academic cite-able research