Evaluating Sources

Popular Articles

Scholarly Articles

• Are often written by journalists or professional writers for a general audience
• Use language easily understood by general readers
• Tend to be shorted in length
• Rarely give full citations for sources - or may refer to sources within the article, but not provide a bibliography list at the end of the article
• Often have glossy advertisements not related to the article content

• Are written by and for faculty, researchers or scholars
• Use scholarly or technical language
• Tend to be longer articles about research or provide results of original research
• Include full citations for sources in a bibliography, reference list or footnotes
• Are often refereed or peer reviewed
• Few if any advertisements - will be related to the content of the journal, such as new books or upcoming conferences