Popular vs. Scholarly Journals and Websites
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Popular |
Scholarly |
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AUDIENCE |
General readers. |
Professors, researchers, scholars, students. |
|
APPEARANCE |
Colorful, eye-catching, lively, slick. |
Attractive, but also serious. |
|
ADVERTISEMENTS |
Many; banner ads that change on a regular basis. |
Few, if any. |
|
PRODUCER |
Commercial and non-profit organizations; personal home pages. |
Educational institutions, faculty pages, professional associations, some commercial and non-profit organizations. |
|
AUTHOR |
Staff writers, journalists, usually not experts in the field. |
Experts in the field, professionals, credentials provided. |
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CONTENT & FOCUS |
News oriented, entertaining,non-technical, opinions. |
Original research, subject specific. |
|
LANGUAGE, STYLE |
Easy to read, engaging. |
Formal language, prior knowledge of subject matter required. |
|
LENGTH |
Usually short to medium in length, providing broad overview. |
Usually quite lengthy in order to provide in-depth analysis on topic. |
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ILLUSTRATIONS |
Heavily illustrated, eye-catching. |
Few illustrations. Include appropriate research-oriented tables, charts, and graphs. |
|
DOCUMENTATION |
Very few, if any |
Bibliographies, Reference List, footnotes |
|
TIMELINESS |
Up-to-date |
Timeliness is not as important |
|
WORDS IN TITLE |
No specific words included or excluded, may be cutesy or contain slang |
Language of the discipline is usually used; “study” or “research” will often be included in the title. |