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:

Scholarly

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Michigan Quarterly Review;

Popular

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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
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Articles cite sources and provide bibliographies Articles may include quotations but do not cite sources or provide bibliographies