How To - Distinguish between types of publications

Purpose

Scholarly journals include one or more of the following:

• Results of research (experiments and other research)
• Case studies
• Theories

Intended audience

Scholarly journals are written for scholars and researchers in a particular field.

Authors

Scholarly journal articles are written by experts in a particular field. In most fields, these experts are professors at colleges and universities. However, experts in some fields - like medicine and other sciences - might also work in hospitals, labs, government agencies, or similar organizations.

Characteristics

• Authors are clearly identified; their graduate degrees or credentials are usually shown too
• Words and phrases in the article may be used only by people in that field, or used in a certain way
• Mostly black & white
• May contain graphs or charts (photographs are less common)
• Articles usually have many references to works, scholarship, or personal communications
• Few, if any, advertisements

Publisher

Many scholarly journals are published by professional associations, academic institutions, or sometimes commercial publishers.

Frequency

Scholarly journals are usually published quarterly, monthly, or somewhere in between (so roughly between 4-12 times a year). Some scholarly journals are published weekly, but this is uncommon.

Journal of Refugee Studies
* Accessed through Scarborough Library

Accountability in Research
* Accessed through Scarborough Library

International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning
* Accessed through Scarborough Library

*Open access journal