Why Evaluate?: Types of Publications

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

Depending 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)

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
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**	Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, People, Newsweek, National Geographic	Advertising Age, Variety, Billboard, Public Relations Tactics	Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Journal of Public Relations Research

**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.