General Interest or Scholarly?

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Why It Matters

Books, articles and media are published for different reasons and for different target audiences. In the library, we frequently divide sources into two groups: general-interest and scholarly. Two articles might be on the same topic, but a general-interest article will be greatly different than a scholarly one.

Examples

  • Documentary film versus Hollywood movie
  • Novel versus textbook
  • Blog versus online newspaper

Popular and Scholarly Sources (5:30 minute video from CLIP, closed captioning available)

How to Tell the Difference

All Formats

Area General Interest / Popular Scholarly / Academic
Purpose
  • Give information, entertain, promote a point of view or sell something
  • Report original research or experiments
  • Provide new analysis of previous research, experiments or writing
Style
  • Moderate reading level
  • May use sensational or provocative title
  • Technical language used by experts
  • Written for scholars, professionals or students
Author
  • Author name may be omitted
  • Usually written by non-experts (journalists, editorial staff, or freelance authors)
  • Degrees or qualifications not listed
  • Author's name listed
  • Written by expert in the field
  • May list position (job title), education and degrees
References
  • Rarely has citations or bibliography
  • Sources are cited, has bibliography

Articles

Area General Interest / Popular Scholarly / Academic
Format
  • Shorter length
  • Often have pictures and advertisements
  • Longer length
  • Little or no advertising
  • May include: abstract, explanation of methods, graphs, statistics, charts, analysis and conclusion
Peer Review
  • Not evaluated by experts in the field
  • Evaluated by other experts in the field
  • Called peer-reviewed, scholarly or refereed journals
Frequency
  • Usually published daily, weekly, or monthly
  • Usually published monthly or quarterly
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