What is a Scholarly Journal?
This guide will help you distinguish between scholarly journals, magazines, and trade publications - both print and
online - and will help you identify and evaluate these types of sources.
Definitions
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Serials
Is the broad term for any publication issued "periodically", including newspapers, journals, magazines, annuals,
numbered monographic series and the proceedings, transactions and memoirs of societies.
Periodicals
All periodicals are serials, but are publications issued at regular intervals (i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.)
and are intended to continue indefinitely
Include newspapers, magazines, journals, and trade publications
Peer-review process
Also known as the "referee process" or "refereed"
An editorial board asks subject experts to review and evaluate submitted articles before accepting them for
publication in a scholarly journal
Submissions are evaluated using criteria including the excellence, novelty and significance of the research or ideas
Scholarly journals use this process to protect and maintain the quality of material they publish
Members of the editorial board are listed near the beginning of each journal issue
Not all scholarly journals go through the peer-review process, but a peer-reviewed journal is almost always
considered scholarly. An example of a scholarly, but non-peer reviewed journal: Journal of Financial Econometrics
Primary sources
Provide firsthand information in the original words of the creator or eye witness
Include creative works, for example: poetry, drama, novels, music, art, films
Include original documents, for example: interviews, diaries, speeches, letters, minutes, film footage, oral histoires,
manuscripts
Include reports of original research and ideas, for example: statistical data, case studies, conference papers,
technical reports and research papers published in scholarly journals
Secondary Sources
Provide information reviewing, evaluating, analyzing or interpreting primary sources
Include criticism and interpretation of creative works
Include interpretations of original documents, for example: biographies, historical analyses, textbooks and
encyclopedia articles
Include summaries and reviews of scholarly findings, for example review articles, textbooks, encyclopedia articles
and both scholarly journal and popular magazine articles
Review articles
Are secondary sources that report and summarize other authors' works on a given subject
Are a useful overview tool; they provide a summary of recent research on a particular subject
Review articles are not considered research articles
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Research Articles
Articles describing new research or ideas
Written in a formal manner that includes background information, methods used, results/interpretation and
significance
Open Access (OA) Journals
Journals that are freely available online - this term specifically refers to free scholarly journals
Examples: Northwest Journal of Linguistics, Current Issues in Education
Scholarly Journals, Magazines, and Trade Publications
The table below provides a quick comparison between scholarly journals, magazines, and trade publications:
Scholarly Journals
Magazines
Trade Publications
Authors
Academics and experts in the
discipline or field who are
always identified
Purpose
Facilitate scholarly
Provide general information
communication between
and entertainment to a broad
members of a particular
audience
academic discipline and/or the
public
Provide information to
members of a particular
industry or profession
Content Description
Extensive research articles and
analyses written in formal
academic styles; some of
these types of articles can be
considered primary sources
Exclusively professional,
industry, or trade information
Professional writers, not
necessarily experts; writers
are not always identified
General interest articles that
can include a mixture of fact,
anecdote, and/or opinion
Industry experts,
professionals, or practitioners
who are not always identified
Articles can be fact, anecdote,
Glossy covers, many pictures, and/or opinion.
extensive use of colour
May include scholarly review
images, and usually much
Usually have colourful covers,
articles or news sections which advertising
and quite often advertising
briefly report on new research;
specific to the profession,
these are not research articles Often called "popular
trade, or industry
magazines"
Plain covers, and generally
Often require professional
more charts, graphs, and
No special vocabulary or
knowledge and vocabulary to
illustrations than photographs; knowledge is generally
be fully understood
sometimes advertising
required to understand
Often have the word "journal"
in the title
Information is always specific
to a particular academic
discipline or field, and usually
requires professional or
academic knowledge to be fully
understood
Publishers
Academic organisations
Commercial publishers
Usually professional and
trade organisations
Citations,
Always
footnotes/endnotes,
and/or bibliographies
Usually none
Sometimes
Peer Reviewed
No
Very rarely
Print and electronic
Print and electronic
Almost always
Editorial board members are
listed in each journal issue,
and/or on the journal's website.
Format
Print and electronic
How to Access
Paid subscriptions to print or
electronic versions
Paid subscriptions to print or
electronic versions
Electronic versions are usually Electronic versions are usually
accessed through subscription accessed through databases,
databases
and sometimes through the
magazine's website
Paid subscriptions to print or
electronic versions
Electronic versions are
usually accessed through
business databases, and
sometimes through websites
Sometimes available online
free of charge as Open Access
journals or through Google
Scholar
Examples of
subscription
publications
Canadian Journal of History
Maclean's
Canadian Banker,
National Geographic
Food in Canada
Psychology Today
Sight and Sound
The Linguistic Review
Examples of Open
Access publications
Journal of Abnormal
Psychology
Sport's Illustrated
Journal of Biomechanics
Scientific American
Northwest Journal of
Linguistics
Current Issues in Education
Another way of determining what kind of serial publication you are using is verifying Journal types with Ulrich's
Periodicals Directory.
Finding Scholarly Journals
For many assignments, you may be asked to use only articles from scholarly journals, and you will usually use a
database to find these articles. Some, but not all, databases have a feature that allows you to limit your results to
peer-reviewed journal articles only.
Source: Simon Fraser University Library Web site, California. See <http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publicationtypes/scholarly-journals#definitions>.