 The Library Media Center at Bellevue College would like to share with you the differences between popular and scholarly periodicals. We realize it might be confusing when your instructor asks for an article from a scholarly periodical. We would like to help reduce that confusion by showing you what to look for when you need to access a scholarly periodical. First, we should start with some definitions of popular and scholarly periodicals. A popular periodical seeks the readership of the general public and is usually intended for entertainment. The content in popular articles is written for a general audience. Think of a scholarly periodical as a professional conversation. It is intended for a specific reading audience. The content in scholarly articles often contain original research and are written in language used in a particular field or discipline. Scholarly and popular periodicals each have defining characteristics. There are a few simple ways to distinguish them. When looking at popular periodicals, we recognize the following characteristics. Content is targeted to a general audience, features glossy pages and lots of advertising. Articles are often short and witty with punchy headlines. Articles are written by journalists, reporters and staff writers and sources are not always cited. When looking at scholarly periodicals, we recognize the following characteristics. The content is written for a professional or academic audience. There are very few pictures and little or no advertising. The articles tend to be longer and more specific. Articles are written by scholars or researchers in a specific discipline. Sources are usually cited with references, footnotes or endnotes. It might be helpful to look at some of these periodicals so we can understand the difference between them. Let's look at some examples. Here we have Mother Jones. Is it popular or scholarly? You can see that the cover has an enticing photo and a catchy article title. These clues tell me that this is likely a popular magazine. Opening up the magazine, we immediately see advertisements. Scholarly journals rarely have advertisements. This is another clue that this is a popular magazine. There is an editorial board for this magazine. It is made up of editors, creative directors and reporters. None of the people on the board are experts in a particular field. Here is the table of contents for this issue. Notice the article titles are catchy. Were Not Crazy and How the War on Women was Won. Here is one of the articles from that magazine. It is very interesting, but where are the references at the end? If I find something I want to follow up on in this article, how can I get more information? And here we have Psychological Reports. It is likely a scholarly journal, but let's take a closer look. It looks like the journal has an editorial board. The credentials of each board member is listed. Notice that all are from universities or organizations focused on psychological research. Here is one of the articles from this issue. Notice that the title is full of academic terms related to psychology. The authors are listed as well as their institution. Also included here is an abstract of the article, which is common in a scholarly journal. As you can see, the authors have illustrated their research using graphs and charts. This is important in a scholarly research article. The authors have included a reference list of articles and books they used in their research. So if I choose to, I can find more articles on this topic. This is definitely a scholarly periodical. These are some of the important differences between scholarly and popular periodicals. Both of these kinds of periodicals are available through our research databases. Which you can access through the library media center website. If you need help finding popular or scholarly periodicals, or would like to speak with a librarian, head over to the reference room on the main floor of the library and we would be glad to help.