Know the Difference Between Scholarly and Popular Journals/Magazines
- Both kinds of journals and magazines can be useful sources of information.
- Popular magazines and newspapers are good for overviews, recent news, first-person accounts, and opinions about a topic.
- Scholarly journals, often called scientific or peer-reviewed journals, are good sources of actual studies or research conducted about a particular topic. They go through a process of review by experts, so the information is usually highly reliable.
| Scholarly Journals | Popular Journals |
| Written by experts | Written by journalists |
| Articles are peer-reviewed or approved by experts in the field | Not peer reviewed |
| A list of references, citations, and/or a bibliography appears at the end of the article | No list of references |
| Reading level is advanced | Reading level is basic |
| Examples: Journal of the American Medical Association; Journal of American History | Examples: Newsweek; Time Magazine |
Evaluating Web Resources
Anyone can create a page and put it on the web, without going through any kind of review or quality control process. You need to take responsibility for evaluating the information you find.
Here are some criteria you can use to evaluate information you find on a website:
| Reviewed Sites |
Find websites via search engines that only list sites that have been reviewed by a person with experience in a particular subject area. For example: |
| Compare | Compare similarities and differences to other sites. This can reveal controversies on a topic and help you detect bias. |
| Corroborate |
Corroborate the information by double-checking the same topic in reviewed sources such as scholarly journal articles or to reference resources, such as specialized encyclopedias. |
There are also many “checklists” for evaluating websites.
See also Five Criteria for Evaluating Websites from Cornell University library
Trust your instincts! If it doesn't sound right to you, you might not want to use the information in your paper.
You should use the same criteria to evaluate any information source.
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