ESEPSY 2060: Academic Success Strategies for International Students

 Characteristics of popular journals (magazines):

Purpose:  Articles are usually written for general or broader audiences.

Authors: The author is a journalist or professional writer; it is not always clear who the author is.

Format: Easier to understand and may include many photographs on glossy pages.

Audience: Articles are usually written by journalists or professional writers for a general audience.

Length: Articles are usually shorter than scholarly journal articles.

Style: The content is easy to comprehend by the general reader.

Characteristics of scholarly or academic journals:

         Purpose:  Report results of original research, examine existing theories and present new interpretations, review and analyze previous research studies on a topic.

                Authors: Scholars with relevant credentialed degrees appropriate to the field.

         Format:   Articles always cite sources in footnotes or bibliographies, may include charts, graphs or tables, but usually few photographs.

               Frequency: Many are published quarterly, but some are more frequent.

        Language: Uses terminology of the field or discipline.

        Publisher: Often published by scholarly or professional organizations (not always).  Some commercial (for profit) publishers also produce scholarly journals. Journal publishers may require authors to pay production fees.

       Selection: Many scholarly journals are “refereed,” that is, a panel of experts reads prospective articles and selects those with scholarly merit.  (“Peer Reviewed” means the same thing as “refereed”.) The journal’s “editorial statement” may indicate whether a journal is refereed.  The library owns guides which also give this information.