All About Scholarly Journals
What is a scholarly journal?
A scholarly journal is a periodical that contains peer reviewed articles. They are written for an audience of scholars and researchers in a particular field. Other terms commonly used to describe this type of journal are peer reviewed, academic, or refereed.
What is peer review?
Peer review is a process used to ensure the quality of articles. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editor(s) send it out to experts/scholars in the field (i.e. the author’s peers) to review and critically evaluate the article on quality, importance, and appropriateness to the journal.
What is the difference between peer review and the publication process for magazines?
Magazine articles are only judged/reviewed by the editor of the magazine, who may not have any knowledge of the article's subject matter.
What are some other differences between scholarly journals and magazines?
Magazines contain lots of advertisements and have glossy, colorful pictures. Scholarly journals do not have many advertisements or images, and when they do, they are usually black & white charts, graphs, and diagrams. Magazine articles are written for a popular audience, while scholarly articles contain specialized vocabulary and assume that the reader has some knowledge of the field. Scholarly journal articles are longer, include lots of documentation (i.e. references), and are published less frequently than magazines.
Some magazines, often called “substantive magazines,” are not peer reviewed or written for scholars in a particular field, but they are written for an educated audience that has some knowledge of the issues presented. They are more in depth than popular magazines and may be useful for certain types of research.
You can find charts comparing scholarly journals with magazines at:
University of Texas Libraries: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/students/find/popularvscholarly.html
or
The University of Texas at San Antonio Library: http://www.lib.utsa.edu/Research/Subject/scholarlyguide.html
Some Examples of Scholarly Journals
JAMA – The Journal of the American Medical Association, College & Research Libraries, Choice Magazine*, Journal of Youth Services in Libraries, Nature, Technical Services Quarterly
Examples of Non-scholarly Periodicals
Time, Sports Illustrated, Ladies Home Journal*, American Libraries
*Often, scholarly journals will have “journal” in the title, and non-scholarly periodicals will have the word “magazine,” but as you can see from the examples, this is not always the case
How can I tell for sure that it's a scholarly journal?
These sources will indicate whether or not a periodical is peer reviewed/refereed
Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory (print) or Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory (subscription database)
Magazines for Libraries (print)
How can I find articles from scholarly journals in the TexShare databases?
Many of the TexShare databases, such as Academic Search Premier, offer the option of limiting results to scholarly articles. Look for an option in the "limiters" section of the search page that mentions scholarly, peer-reviewed, academic, or refereed journals.
This page was written by Olivia Reinauer in Spring 2005.
This page was revised by David Wilson in Spring 2006.
INF 382S: Library Instruction and Information Literacy, taught by Dr. Loriene Roy
School of Information,
The University of Texas at Austin