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Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

Popular (also called non-scholarly) sources inform and entertain the public or allow practitioners to share industry, practice, and production information  Examples: Newspapers, magazines, trade journals, popular books.

Scholarly (also called academic) sources disseminate research and academic discussion among professionals within disciplines; they are intended for university-level study and research, and are preferred when writing university-level essays.  Examples: Journals and books.

Adapted from the CQ University Library.

scholarly vs. popular articles

Comparing Sources: Scholarly vs. Non-Scholarly Sources

Seven criteria for evaluating sources.

Scholarly/Academic Source Non-scholarly/Popular Source
Purpose
  • To share with other scholars the results of primary research & experiments.
  • To entertain or inform in a broad, general sense.
Author
  • A respected scholar or researcher in the field; an expert in the topic; names are always noted.
  • A journalist or feature writer; names are not always noted.
Publisher
  • A university press; a professional association or known (independent) scholarly publisher.
  • A commercial publisher; self-published.
Audience
  • Scholars or researchers in the field or those interested in the topic at a research level; university students.
  • General public.
Content
  • Formal presentation of scholarly work in a standard style; often an abstract at the beginning of the article. Articles may have section headings, such as literature review, methodology, results, discussion/further study.
  • Often presented in story format, with anecdotes from other people.
Style
  • Language is formal and technical; usually contains discipline-specific jargon.
  • Language is casual (high school reading level or lower). Few, if any, technical terms are used (and if they are, they are usually defined.)
References
  • Standard element; reference are always cited and expected; can also be called "works cited," or "bibliographies;" text often contains footnotes.
  • Very uncommon; text may contain vague referrals to "a study published at..." or "researchers found that..." with no other details about that information.

 

Adapted from the Valparaiso University Library.