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Your professor has asked you to find a scholarly, professional, academic, peer-reviewed*, or refereed* journal as opposed to a popular magazine. There is no clear-cut definition, but here are some clues to help you distinguish between them.
| Scholarly Journals | Popular Magazines | |
| Written for | Professors & scholars | General public |
| Written by | Scholars, researchers, academics | Journalists, staff writers, freelance writers |
| Appearance |
Serious & sober with few colors Advertisements and photographs rare |
Glossy with advertisements Many photographs |
| Articles |
Are signed and often include author's credentials Are written in scholarly & specialized language of discipline Give more detailed discussion of an event Lengthy Contain footnotes and bibliographies Contain charts & graphs |
Are not always signed by author
Give first reports of an event |
| Values & uses | Reports on original research; in-depth analysis of topics; statistical information; academic book reviews |
Current events and news; hot topics; brief, factual information; interviews; entertainment |
| Examples | Advances in Nursing Science Journal of Abnormal Psychology Modern Fiction Studies |
Time Ebony National Geographic |
*Peer-reviewed/Refereed - articles are published only after receiving approval by an editorial board of experts (the author's "peers"). This means that a subject expert must review and correct the article before the journal will publish it. Consequently, peer-reviewed journal articles are typically considered higher quality than non-peer-reviewed articles (adapted from Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries).