College Readiness - Archived

Academic or scholarly journals articles are written by experts in a particular scholarly field and read by other experts in that same field.  They are good sources for research since the articles are most often peer-reviewed, that is checked by other experts working in the same area to make sure the information is both accurate and timely.  

Academic journals look very different from trade publications or magazines.  While magazines usually have glossy, colorful covers and advertisements throughout, academic journals often look rather plain, with only simple black text and few pictures.  But inside a database those visual cues are not present and it can be harder to tell if the article you found was originally published in a magazine or an academic journal.  To determine whether an article in a databse is from a magazine or an academic journal look for the following clues:

• Author's Name and Credentials--Academic journals will make clear both who the author is and which advanced degrees (MA, PhD, etc) they have earned or with which university they are associated. Magazines only occasionally name the author and seldom list the author's credentials.
• Article Length--Magazine articles are generally short (1-6 pages), while articles in scholarly journals tend to be much longer (15+ pages), especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
• Works Cited or Bibliographies--Writers in academic journals are careful to list all their sources using either footnotes or endnote citations.  If your aticle does not have cited references to other works, then it is not from an academic journal.

(University of Washington)

(Cornell College)