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Is it a Scholarly Journal?

The following tables will help you determine whether the journal you are using is a popular magazine, a trade magazine, or a scholarly (or peer reviewed or academic) journal.

Appearance, Advertisements

Popular Magazines
Trade Magazines
Scholarly Magazines
  • Colorful cover
  • Cover depicts trade setting
  • Plain cover
  • Glossy paper
  • Glossy paper
  • Plain paper
  • Color pictures
  • Color pictures
  • Black & white pictures
  • Each issue starts with page 1
  • Each issue starts with page 1
  • Consecutive pages
  • Advertisements
  • Advertisements
  • No advertisements

 

Audience
Popular Magazines
Trade Magazines
Scholarly Magazines
  • Geared to layman and non-professionals
  • Geared to members of a specific business, profession, or organization
  • Geared to researchers and professionals

 

Content
Popular Magazines
Trade Magazines
Scholarly Magazines
  • Personalities, current events, general interest
  • Industry trends, new products or manufacturing techniques, organizational news
  • Primary research results, new methodologies and theories, research projects

 

Accountability
Popular Magazines
Trade Magazines
Scholarly Magazines
  • Articles written by staff, many unsigned
  • Articles written by staff or experts in the field
  • Articles written by experts in the field and researchers
  • Editorial review by general editor
  • Editorial review by general editor
  • Peer review by subject experts
  • No bibliographies, footnotes or endnotes
  • Short bibliographies or no bibliographies
  • Extensive bibliographies, works cited, footnotes or endnotes

 

Tool: Indexing & Abstracting

Popular Magazines
Trade Magazines
Scholarly Magazines
  • General
  • Subjected oriented
  • Subject oriented

 

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