What is the Difference Between Scholarly and Popular Sources?
Popular Sources
Examples include: newspapers and magazines like The Washington Post or The Economist.
Written by journalists. Journalists are good writers and researchers, but they are not necessarily experts in the topic they are writing about.
Written for a broad audience.
Editors determine what is published.
Peer Reviewed (sometimes called Scholarly or Academic
The critical distinction is that articles are evaluated by other experts before they are considered for publication.
Examples include journals like Nature or The Journal of Sociology.
Written by experts
Written for other experts in the discipline and also students.
Include citations, like footnotes and a bibliography.
Scholarly Sources
Scholarly or academic sources are also written by experts in their field, but they are not necessarily evaluated by other experts before being published.
