Scholarly vs Popular Sources:

Distinguishing between the two.

Objectives:• to have students explore

the differences in presentation and style of journals and popular magazines

• to give students guidelines in identifying scholarly sources

PGE du jour:RD (Reading) - The student reads literary, informational text and other media for a variety of purposes. The proficient student:

• RD2 Demonstrates initial understanding of informational text (GSE - R-7) and uses strategies to analyze, understand, and interpret informational text across content areas (GSE - R-8).

T (technology) - The student applies technology. The proficient student:

• T1 Manipulates technology as a tool to gather, to analyze, to organize, and to present information.

Reading Levels of Popular Periodicals

30%9Reader's Digest

30%9Time

30%9Harpers

25%10USA Today

25%10Washington Post

25%10New York Times

25%10New Yorker

20%11Chicago Tribune

20%11Atlantic Monthly

18%12Los Angeles Times

% of ReadersGrade LevelPeriodical

Table 3. Reading levels of popular periodicals and theestimated percentage share of adult readers in the U.S.

Contains ads and photographs

Glossy

Often sold at newsstands or bookstores

Usually restarts pagination with each issue

Usually have quite a broad subject focus

Primarily print with few pictures

Tables, graphs, and diagrams are often included

Usually few or no ads - if there are ads, they are for books, journals, conferences, or services in the field

Often have "journal," "review," or "quarterly" as part of the title

Successive issues in a volume often have continuous pagination

Usually have a narrow subject focus

GeneralCharacteristics

Easy to read - aimed at the layperson

Articles are usually short, and often entertain as they inform

Assumes a level of knowledge in the field

Usually contains specialized language (jargon)

Articles are often lengthy

Writing Style

Commercial, for profitOften a scholarly or professional organization or academic pressPublishers

Editor works for publisherEditorial board of outside scholars (known as peer review)Editors

Rarely includes footnotesIncludes a bibliography, references, notes and/or works cited sectionFootnotes

Journalists or freelance writers

Articles may or may not be signed

Experts in the field (i.e., faculty members, researchers)

Articles are signed, often including author's credentials and affiliation

Authors

General publicScholars, researchers, practitionersAudience

Popular SourcesScholarly Sources

Maintained by: Ted D. Smith, tedsmith@uoregon.eduLast Modified: 09/22/2006

Are popular sources allowed?• Ask your teacher/professor

if the use of popular sources is allowed (and if so, how many of your sources can be popular)

• Just because an article appears in a popular source does not mean the information contained in the article is useless.

MLA Format: Articles from Databases• Author's name (if not available, use the article title as the first part of the citation) • Article Title • Periodical Name • Publication Date • Page Number/Range • Database Name • Service Name • Name of the library where or through which the service was accessed • Name of the town/city where service was accessed • Date of Access • URL of the service (but not the whole URL for the article, since those are usually ve0ry long

and won't be easily re-used by someone trying to retrieve the information)

The generic citation form would look like this:Author. "Title of Article." Periodical Name Volume Number (if necessary) Publication Date:

page number-page number. Database name. Service name. Library Name, City, State. Date of access <electronic address of the database>.

Article from Student Resource Center Gold:Tangum, Marion M, and Marjorie Smelstor. "Hurston's and Angelou's Visual Art: The Distancing

Vision and the Beckoning Gaze.” The Southern Literary Journal. 31. 1 (Fall 1998): 80(1). Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Ponaganset High School Lib, N. Scituate, RI. 23 July 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/>.