Popular and Scholarly Articles

Research Help Appointments

Need help with your research? A reference librarian is like a tutor for finding and citing information. Schedule an appointment to get uninterrupted individual time with a librarian.

Depending on your assignment, you may find yourself needing popular articles, scholarly articles, or both for your research.

Popular Articles (Magazines, Newspapers, some Websites):

  • Are often written by journalists or other non-academic writers.
  • Written for the general public.
  • Are often shorter than academic articles and edited for readability.
  • May discuss studies without citing them.

Examples: Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, LifeHacker.com

Scholarly Articles (Journals, Conference Proceedings):

  • Are written by faculty, professionals, researchers or scholars (biologists, programmers, sociologists, doctors, artists) for their colleagues.
  • Use scholarly, professional or technical language.
  • Are longer articles about research or evaluations of research.
  • Include citations for sources and studies.
  • Are often peer reviewed.

Examples: Nature, Computational Biology, Perspectives on Political Science