Some assignments will require you to use articles from "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" journals. What are scholarly journals and how do you identify them? This section will help you:
Periodicals refers to any publication that is made up of separate issues appearing at regular intervals (eg. a daily newspaper, a weekly magazine, a monthly journal etc).
Periodicals fall into three main categories: Popular, Trade, and Scholarly.
Assignments may require only Scholarly sources, so it's important to understand the difference between the three types of periodicals.
Popular Periodicals
Popular publications are written for a general audience. They could be general in scope or cater to specific interests but, either way, the articles are written so that an average reader can easily understand them.
Trade Periodicals
Trade publications are targeted at professionals and practitioners of a particular industry.
Scholarly Periodicals
Scholarly periodicals (or 'journals') are intended for academic researchers in a specific field. They are written and edited by academics and researchers with the goal of disseminating new findings, results of studies, theories etc. Before being published journal articles are reviewed by other experts in the field (*peer review*).
Peer Review is a review process used by academic journals to ensure their content is authoritative and represents the best scholarship currently available.
Once an article is submitted to a scholarly journal, it is sent to three scholars in the same field (*peers*) to review whether the article meets the journal's standards of scholarship.
To learn more check out our Introduction to Peer Review handout or watch the video introduction below from NC State University Libraries...
Scholarly journal articles are made up of different sections (eg. Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Discussion etc).
You do not need to read each section of a scholarly articles in order. In fact, it's actually more efficient to read them out of order.
Want to learn more about the anatomy of a scholarly article or how to read one? Check out our Anatomy of a Scholarly Article handout or watch this video introduction from UBC...
Take our short quiz and become an expert at identifying and finding scholarly publications!