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COMM 1000

Suggested Public Speaking resources for your informative and persuasive speeches

Chemistry/ Chemical Engineering/Communications & JournalismLibrarian

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Isabel Altamirano
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Contact:
231 Mell St.
Auburn, AL 36849
Student Question/Office Hour - Mondays, noon to 1 p.m. Library Help Desk personnel can call me. I will meet you at the Desk.

Popular? Scholarly? Peer Reviewed? What's the diff?

Photo of a double rainbowDepending on the assignment and/or audience, a great deal. After all, if you're talking to a group of 5th graders, you probably wouldn't use the following quotation:

"Supernumerary rainbows result from interference of light that undergoes single internal reflection, but travels along different paths inside a raindrop. Such rainbows provide a strong indication of the wave nature of light." (Sawicki, M. (2000). Supernumerary rainbows. Physics Teacher, 38(1), 19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.880412)

 

diagram illustrating how sunlight refracts through a raindrop to create a rainbow

 

You would probably use something like this instead:

Tiny raindrops stay in the air after a rainstorm. When storm clouds pass, the sun appears. Sunlight looks white, but it is actually made up of seven colors. When sunlight shines through the raindrops in the air, the light separates into all of its colors. Those colors form a rainbow. (The calm after the storm. (2004). Weekly Reader - Edition 2, 73(25), 3. http://www.weeklyreader.com/)

Knowing how to tell the difference lets your instructor see that you understand the assignment and the audience and helps establish your credibility and authority in his or her eyes.

How to Tell the Difference:*

 Auburn University Libraries has access to everything from "popular" magazines through "trade/technical" publications to "scholarly/professional/refereed" journals. Here is a chart which lists some typical characteristics of these three kinds of publications. However, some publications defy easy categories, so contact Ask A Librarian or stop by the Reference Desk for more help.

TYPES:
POPULAR
 
TRADE/PROFESSIONAL
 

SCHOLARLY
(refereed or peer-reviewed)

 

Characteristics
Magazine cover
Magazine Cover Art

Journal Cover Art

Publisher
commercial firm
commercial firm or association
university or association
(large scientific/academic publishers)
Frequency
weekly,biweekly, or monthly
weekly, biweekly, or monthly
quarterly
Audience
general readers
special readers (persons employed in that field)
special readers (academics & researchers)
Appearance
colorful, illustrated
colorful, illustrated
plain, mostly text
Article Type
short, nontechnical w.photos & graphics
short, technical w. photos & graphics
long, research style w. tables & charts
Writing Style
informal, journalistic
informal, journalistic
formal and/or scientific
Authors
staff writers
staff writers & persons employed in that field
academics and researchers
News Content
covers broad issues and popular and/or business affairs
covers narrow trade or professional issues
NO news coverage
Advertising
ads for business or consumer products
ads for specialized trade/professional products & services
ads for books, if any
Research Apparatus
none
none
extensive bibliographies & advanced statistics
Examples**

 

**The images of Time and BillBoard  link to the library catalog. The links in the table under examples are available through Auburn University Libraries' Databases and may require login if you are off campus.