Scholarly Journals vs. Popular Magazines

Scholarly journals (e.g., Journal of Social Work, Public Finance Review) share the following traits:

• usually have an “abstract”
• tend to be longer in length
• may have charts or graphs
• contain minimal advertising
• usually available at a university library or through a subscription
• sometimes called peer-reviewed or refereed

Types of articles found include: reports of recent research, interpretive essays, reviews, criticisms, empirical studies, historical studies, literature reviews, review essays, book reviews, meta-analysis, editor’s introduction/comments.

Popular magazines (e.g., Maclean’s, Time, Vogue) share the following traits:

• no abstract
• usually brief
• contain lots of photographs/images/colour
• contain lots of advertising
• available everywhere – supermarket to newsagent

Types of articles found include: news reports, essays, how-tos, interviews, opinion pieces, book reviews, discussions of reports, editorials, investigative journal articles, feature articles, columns, discussions of new products