What is a scholarly article?
Professors are always telling students to look for scholarly or research journal articles for their papers. For every field of research and study, there are scholarly journals.
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What are the characteristics of a scholarly journal:
- Scholarly journals are published by universities, research or professional organizations or associations, or specialized publishers
- Scholarly journal don't have pictures in them, unless you are looking in a photography journal. (There aren't any ads for cars or beers either. The only ads you will see are for books or conferences)
- Articles are written by professors and researchers in a specific field or discipline.
- Articles will have extensive documentation in the form of footnotes and bibliographies.
- Articles are usually quite long and detailed. Titles are often long and detailed as well.
- You will see lots of tables and graphs in some disciplines, like mathematics or accounting or the sciences.
- Most importantly, scholarly articles are review by a group of experts in the field before publication. This PEER REVIEWING process insures that the article is of high quality and the research well done..
Example of a research article from a scholarly journal:
Notice that the article includes an abstract, a literature review, a section on methodology, results, and a conclusion.
The Construction of Beauty: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women's Magazine Advertising
If you need more information about scholarly journals, watch the short video on the left.