SOCI 4630 - Senior Seminar - WALSH
Tutorial on Types of Periodicals & Types of Articles
What are Periodicals?
The Information Timeline
- Both scholarly and popular articles are found in publications known as ‘periodicals’; that is, they are usually published at regular intervals (i.e. within a specified 'period' of time).
- To give you a better sense of the range of publications available, let's take a look at some print issues before moving on to discuss types of articles and online searching.
What's the Difference?
Here are three types of periodicals you will find in college libraries:
- Popular or News magazines
- Trade Journals
- Scholarly or Academic Journals
One way to spot the difference between types of periodicals, if you have a printed issue, is to look at the appearance of their covers. In the images below, you can see examples of popular, trade, and scholarly (or academic) journal covers available in print (hard copy):
POPULAR MAGAZINES
TRADE JOURNALS
SCHOLARLY JOURNALS
Can you spot some key differences? OK! that's a good start. Now let's dig a little deeper and review the characteristics of each type which will help you tell them apart when you encounter issues in print or online. Click on the Comparison Table tab.