Scholarly vs Popular Sources:

Distinguishing between the two.

Objectives:

• to have students explore the differences in presentation and style of journals and popular magazines

• to give students guidelines in identifying scholarly sources

PGE du jour:RD (Reading) - The student reads literary, informational text and other media for a variety of purposes. The proficient student:

• RD2 Demonstrates initial understanding of informational text (GSE - R-7) and uses strategies to analyze, understand, and interpret informational text across content areas (GSE - R-8).

T (technology) - The student applies technology. The proficient student:

• T1 Manipulates technology as a tool to gather, to analyze, to organize, and to present information.

Reading Levels of Popular Periodicals

Periodical Grade Level % of Readers

Los Angeles Times 12 18%

Atlantic Monthly 11 20%

Chicago Tribune 11 20%

New Yorker 10 25%

New York Times 10 25%

Washington Post 10 25%

USA Today 10 25%

Harpers 9 30%

Time 9 30%

Reader's Digest 9 30%

Table 3. Reading levels of popular periodicals and theestimated percentage share of adult readers in the U.S.

Scholarly Sources Popular Sources

Audience Scholars, researchers, practitioners General public

Authors Experts in the field (i.e., faculty members, researchers)

Articles are signed, often including author's credentials and affiliation

Journalists or freelance writers

Articles may or may not be signed

Footnotes Includes a bibliography, references, notes and/or works cited section

Rarely includes footnotes

Editors Editorial board of outside scholars (known as peer review) Editor works for publisher

Publishers Often a scholarly or professional organization or academic press Commercial, for profit

Writing Style Assumes a level of knowledge in the field

Usually contains specialized language (jargon)

Articles are often lengthy

Easy to read - aimed at the layperson

Articles are usually short, and often entertain as they inform

GeneralCharacteristic

s

Primarily print with few pictures

Tables, graphs, and diagrams are often included

Usually few or no ads - if there are ads, they are for books, journals, conferences, or services in the field

Often have "journal," "review," or "quarterly" as part of the title

Successive issues in a volume often have continuous pagination

Usually have a narrow subject focus

Contains ads and photographs

Glossy

Often sold at newsstands or bookstores

Usually restarts pagination with each issue

Usually have quite a broad subject focus

Maintained by: Ted D. Smith, tedsmith@uoregon.eduLast Modified: 09/22/2006

Are popular sources allowed?

• Ask your teacher/professor if the use of popular sources is allowed (and if so, how many of your sources can be popular)

• Just because an article appears in a popular source does not mean the information contained in the article is useless.

MLA Format: Articles from Databases

• Author's name (if not available, use the article title as the first part of the citation) • Article Title • Periodical Name • Publication Date • Page Number/Range • Database Name • Service Name • Name of the library where or through which the service was accessed • Name of the town/city where service was accessed • Date of Access • URL of the service (but not the whole URL for the article, since those are usually

ve0ry long and won't be easily re-used by someone trying to retrieve the information)

The generic citation form would look like this:Author. "Title of Article." Periodical Name Volume Number (if necessary) Publication

Date: page number-page number. Database name. Service name. Library Name, City, State. Date of access <electronic address of the database>.

Article from Student Resource Center Gold:Tangum, Marion M, and Marjorie Smelstor. "Hurston's and Angelou's Visual Art: The

Distancing Vision and the Beckoning Gaze.” The Southern Literary Journal. 31. 1 (Fall 1998): 80(1). Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Ponaganset High School Lib, N. Scituate, RI. 23 July 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/>.