Scholarly and popular sources.
Scholarly and popular sources. While nonacademic sources like magazines can help you get started on a research project, you will usually want to depend more heavily on authorities in a field, whose work generally appears in scholarly journals in print or online. The following list will help you distinguish scholarly and popular sources:
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Scholarly 
Michigan Quarterly Review;
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Popular 
Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2013 Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved;
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Courtesy of Ecology and Society;
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Salon.com
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| Title often contains the word Journal | Journal usually does not appear in title |
| Source available mainly through libraries and library databases | Source generally available outside of libraries (at newsstands or from a home Internet connection) |
| Few commercial advertisements | Many advertisements |
| Authors identified with academic credentials | Authors are usually journalists or reporters hired by the publication rather than academics or experts |
| Summary or abstract appears on first page of article; articles are fairly long | No summary or abstract; articles are fairly short |
| Articles cite sources and provide bibliographies | Articles may include quotations but do not cite sources or provide bibliographies |