Journals, magazines, and newspapers (periodicals) are important sources for timely research, but it is often difficult to distinguish between the various levels of scholarship. General criteria for recognizing the different types of periodicals are as follows:
Examples of Scholarly Journals:
Examples of Trade Publications:
Examples of Substantive News or General Interest Periodicals:
Examples of Popular Periodicals:
Examples of Sensational Periodicals:
Several databases available through the Ivy Tech library, including EBSCOHost and ProQuest, will allow you to limit your search to only retrieve the contents of scholarly journals. Other databases, such as JSTOR, consist entirely of scholarly journal articles.
These resources can all be accessed through the links below or through the Library website by following these steps.
Please note that not all materials published in scholarly journals are peer-reviewed. Scholarly journals also contain opinion essays, letters to the editor, book reviews, and other forms of writing which are not suitable substitutes for peer-reviewed articles.
For information on how to use EBSCOHost, ProQuest, or another database, use the guides found under the How do I find articles? tab, or refer to the Help link on the database’s homepage.