Skip to Main Content

ENG101 MCTC Library Research Strategy

ENG101 MCTC Library Research Strategy

#Refining: Scholarly vs. Popular Articles

Importance of Using Scholarly Journal Articles Instead of Popular Magazine Articles

General webpage articles may be found online through a web search, i.e. Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

College instructors expect you to use published articles that provide citations to research that was used and has been submitted through a review process (peer-reviewed by an editorial board to verify the data or material presented).

These are scholarly sources and are not found on the open web. 

The library provides access to scholarly articles in the databases located on the Resources webpage.

Warning: Using Google or another search engine will not yield the kind of articles your instructor expects. 

The difference between SCHOLARLY articles and POPULAR articles:

Scholarly articles are

  • written by experts for experts
  • summarize the author's research 
  • written for experts
  • published in research journals
  • reviewed by experts.

What should you look for to determine if it is
a scholarly article?

  • Abstract (a short summary)
  • Introduction (gives background, define terms)
  • Method (describes scientific methods or procedures)
  • Results (lists what the research found, also may include charts, lists, graphs, examples)
  • Discussions (discuss results or what the research means)
  • Conclusions (closes out the paper, suggestions for new research)
  • References (list of citations of articles used in the paper)

Popular articles are

  • written by non-experts
  • summarize other people's research
  • written for a general audience
  • published on websites, in magazines or newspapers
  • not reviewed by experts.

Popular articles may be informative but the
information is not necessarily based on in-depth research.  

To determine if an article is popular article (does not mean it has a lot of likes!), consider this:

  • Author (written by reporter/journalist, non-expert)
  • Source (magazine, newspaper)
  • Audience (general pulic, for non-experts)
  • Vocubulary (written in every day terms)
  • References (few or no citations)

What IS a Scholarly Article?

Still not sure how to tell the difference between scholarly and popular articles?

Watch this video that explains what is a scholarly article. 

After you have watched this video, try the Challenge (to the left) to see how well you understand the differences.