Recognize the different characteristics of popular and scholarly sources.
- Bring physical copies of popular magazines and scholarly journals. Have students break up into groups to discuss differences. As a class discuss the differences & point out what students missed.
Sources: Scholarly vs. Popular Author: In scholarly articles, the author's credentials are given, usually a scholar with subject expertise. In popular articles, the author may not be named; a professional writer or journalist who publishes on a wide variety of topics and lacks subject expertise. Audience: For scholarly articles, the audience is scholars, researchers, students. For popular articles, the audience is the general public. Citation: In scholarly articles, sources are cited in footnotes and/or a bibliography. In popular articles, citations are rare. Scanty, if any information about sources. Review: Scholarly articles are peer-reviewed or referred by scholars in a similar or the same field. Popular articles are not reviewed or reviewed by non-specialized editors. Publisher: Scholarly articles are usually published by an academic or scholarly press. Popular articles may have no publisher, and unknown publisher or be published by a popular press that publishes a wide range or popular sources. Format: Scholarly sources are found in books or scholarly journal articles. Popular sources can be found in magazines, websites, and newspapers.
