Library: Library Tutorials: Scholarly Peer Reviewed

Scholarly, Popular, and Professional Sources

Select each type of source to learn more:

Scholarly sources are written by researchers who are experts in their field (doctoral or masters' degrees), and used by scholars, students and professionals to inform their research and evidence-based practice. Scholarly sources include scholarly books and peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

Popular sources are written by journalists, staff writers, or freelance writers and are aimed at informing, entertaining, or persuading the general public. They include news, magazines, and blogs. Popular sources may report on research for the general public, but they are not peer reviewed.

Professional sources are popular sources that are written by people in a business or industry and used by people in that field to get updates on issues and make decisions. Like other popular sources, they are not peer reviewed.

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

Comparison of scholarly journals and popular news or magazines
	Scholarly Journal	Popular News or Magazine
Audience	scholars, students, professionals	general public
Authors	experts in the field (Masters' or Doctoral degree)	journalists, staff or freelance writers
Peer Review	peer reviewed*	not peer reviewed
Structure	structured format such as IMRAD (introduction, methods, results and discussion)	no structured format
References	almost always; formal citation style	credited in the text or no citations
Web Example	BMC Molecular and Cell Biology	Medical News Today
Library Example	Journal of Food Science and Technology	Bon Appetit
Example Article	"New plant-based fermented beverage made of baru nut enriched with probiotics and green banana: composition, physiochemical and sensory properties"	"Hydrate like a pro"

*Research articles in scholarly journals are peer reviewed. Scholarly journals can also contain editorials, opinions, commentaries, and book reviews that are not peer reviewed. If you're not sure whether an article is peer reviewed, ask a librarian.

This Scholarly and Popular Sources Comparison Chart is adapted from Scholarly and Popular Materials by NCSU Libraries, under CC BY NC SA.

Parts of a Peer Reviewed Scholarly Article

Parts of a Scholarly Article (Video) Articles come in many varieties, but this video provides a few examples to refer to when determining the differences between scholarly and popular articles.